Rubber Reefs To Burn

[ricki]

An update on the military cleanup effort:

"Military halts cleanup of Florida tire reef
Two wars and earthquake relief in Haiti stretch forces thin, officials say
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WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — With the job undone, U.S. military divers won't return this summer to Florida to clean up a failed artificial reef made of thousands of old tires.
The Army and Navy crews are just stretched too thin by conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, the war on terror and earthquake relief in Haiti, a Pentagon official said this week.
About 700,000 tires, some bundled with nylon and steel, were sunk in 1972 a mile off Fort Lauderdale in about 70 feet of water with the good intention of creating an artificial reef.
But it became an ecological blunder: Little sea life formed on them and many tires came loose and scoured a patch of the ocean floor the size of 31 football fields. Thousands have wedged up against the nearby natural reef, stacked several feet high, blocking coral growth and devastating marine life.
Divers from the Army and Navy began cleaning up the mess in 2007, using the project for training at no cost to the state of Florida. But with just about 10 percent of the tires removed, they're not returning likely for at least two years.
"Unfortunately, they're not having a lot of time to train because they're committed, as the whole military is pretty well swamped," said David McGinnis, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs.
Can't restart until 2012
The soonest the project could likely resume is 2012, McGinnis said, provided the current schedule holds for withdrawing troops from Iraq and Afghanistan."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35334810...s-environment/