Reefballing
I was just browsing around the web and came across the website for an organization called Reef Ball.
They purport to make artificial reefs out of marine friendly concrete to "restore ailing coral reefs and to create new fishing and scuba diving sites". There is a description of their reef balls here.
So my question is, what happens when the next big storm comes along and starts pushing your reef balls around, destroying any healthy reef and other habitats that might happen to be nearby.
A professor in a human dimensions course once told the story of these giant concrete structures, shaped sort of like jacks from the kids game, that were deployed somewhere in the Pacific (I can't remember where) as surf breaks in an attempt to stop coastal erosion. A typhoon comes along and starts moving these structures around and completely destroys the local coral reefs.
Nice work!
As poorly as we understand coastal processes, it is amazing the lengths we will go to to prevent coastal erosion and protect all of our nice hotels and wealthy landowners, with little or no thought to the long term implications of our actions. Something as simple as beach renourishment can have devastating impacts on everything from the aesthetic quality of the beach to sea turtle nesting. The beaches at Bald Head Island are a perfect example. Before a beach renourishment project a couple of years ago there was nice soft sand up and down the beach. They have now dredged up a bunch of shell hash and sharp oyster shells on the beach, making it much less enjoyable. I'm guessing the sand is more compacted as well, which may make it more difficult for sea turtles to nest there. To top it off sections of the beach have already eroded away beyond where they were before the renourishment project and the houses they were trying to protect are falling into the water. The answer to this of course is to fill giant plastic bags with sand and line your beach with them!
Oops, went off on a bit of a tangent there...
bye