USCG Massachusetts Artificial Reef Addition

artificial reef deployment near Yarmouth, Massachusetts | credit: USCG

The U.S. Coast Guard recently dropped more than 140,000 pounds of obsolete concrete buoy sinkers on an artificial reef near Yarmouth, Massachusetts.

Used to anchor buoys in place, concrete sinkers come in a variety of sizes and weights, from 100 pounds to 20,000 pounds.

U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Oak (WLB-211) and Aids to Navigation Team (ANT) Woods Hole, Massachusetts, used the discontinued concrete sinkers to support the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries (DMF) artificial reef program.

Lt. Dan Miller, the executive officer of the Newport, Rhode Island-based Coast Guard Cutter Oak, said the artificial reef operation gave crewmembers the chance to complete training and annual weight testing of the buoy handling gear.

Coast Guardsmen deployed the concrete sinkers across a one-acre area of the artificial reef. The program is a valuable resource for commercial and recreational fishermen to cultivate sustainable fisheries, said Miller.

The artificial reef “provides desirable habitat for finfish and lobsters in an otherwise featureless area.” according to Mark Rousseau from the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries.
“Artificial reefs enhance habitat by providing structures in structure-limited areas,” said  “We expect to see reef associated fish occupying the area around the deployed material by next year.”

Commercial and recreational fisheries support more than 97,000 jobs in Massachusetts, according to a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) report on Fisheries Economics in the U.S.

The 128-acre artificial reef was developed in 1978. Until the recent addition of concrete buoy anchors, the reef was lacking structure necessary to attract and sustain a variety of fish species.

Senior Chief Petty Officer Manuel Gonzales, the officer-in-charge of Aids to Navigation Team (ANT) Woods Hole, Massachusetts, said his team jumped at the opportunity to participate in the operation.

“At the ANT, we use 1,000 to 4,000 pound sinkers,” said Gonzales. “When they start to show extreme signs of wear in the concrete or on the bails that attach the chain, they are replaced.”

From the U.S.-Canadian border to Buzzards Bay and Nantucket, Massachusetts, U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Oak maintains 144 Aids to Navigation (ATON) and supports a wide variety of other missions. The seagoing buoy tender services buoys and beacons that guide ships into Boston; Portsmouth, New Hampshire; and Portland, Maine.

ANT Woods Hole services more than 232 buoys, 72 beacons and approximately 1,100 Private ATON from the Cape Cod Bay to Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard.

The U.S. Coast Guard maintains more than 48,000 ATON across more than 25,000 miles of navigable American waterways that facilitate the safe movement of millions of mariners and trillions of dollars of trade every year.

Rousseau from the Division of Marine Fisheries said the buoy sinker operation was the first of what he hoped would be many collaborative efforts with the Coast Guard to support artificial reefs.

source: U.S. Coast Guard

Related Information

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New York Artificial Reef Enhancement

A partnership between the New York District U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (ACOE) and New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) is utilizing dredged rock to enchance artificial reefs in New York including Hempstead Reef, Fire Island Reef, Moriches Reef and Shinnecock Reef.

New York reef sites are strategically located near Long Island inlets. These locations afford opportunities for smaller recreational vessels that cannot travel to offshore destinations to fish and dive.

Hempstead Artificial Reef received its first load of over 5,500 cubic yards of ACOE rock on May 27. The rock is being dredged from a channel deepening project in the Arthur Kill Channels area. Additional deployments on the reef may happen as acceptably sized rock is dredged.

The ACOE and its local sponsor, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, have harbor deepening dredge projects continuing through 2014 that can yield rock material. Dredge rock will removed from the New York Harbor area and placed on New York reef sites.

Prior cooperative projects between the ACOE and DEC have seen the deployment of over a half million cubic yards of dredged rock onto New York reefs. Individual rock deployments have benefitted recreational fishermen and divers through the increased number of patch reefs made available on the sites.

According to DEC, dredge rock has proven to be both stable and durable reef building material while providing shelter and forage opportunities for finfish and crustaceans who inhabit underwater structures.

Reef structures provide valuable marine habitat for popular finfish species such as tautog, fluke, black sea bass, scup, as well as crustaceans like lobsters.

source: New York State Department of Environmental Conservation