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Subway Cars Sunk Near Cape May To Draw Fish & Dollars To Delaware

This article appeared in the August 22, 2001 Philadelphia Inquirer as written by Jonathan Gelb

   Rehoboth Beach, Del. - As onlookers sipped champagne and tossed subway tokens into the water, 27 brick-red New York subway cars were sunk yesterday into the Atlantic Ocean, where they are expected to lure fish and money for Delaware's fishing industry.
   The barge carrying the cars had gently rocked as it approached the site, 16 miles due east of here and the same distance south of Cape May, NJ. Then, at 1 p.m., the signal came, and bulldozers and cranes pushed the venerable cars one by one into the water. They bobbed briefly, then sank as fast as they once might have filled up with passengers beneath Times Square.
   The cars became part of an underwater junk heap that constitutes a virtual reef off the Delaware coast. Delaware is hoping the reef system will boost what it says is a $458 million fishing industry.
   More than 400 New York subway cars will be dumped at the site in coming weeks. They will join two sunken tugboats, a Navy barge, more than 28,000 tons of concrete, 8,000 tons of used tires and 86 military vehicles - including tanks - that Delaware has used for reef material at 11 sites off the coast.
   On the otherwise featureless ocean floor, experts say, the dumped materials attract marine life that, in turn, will someday wind up in the region's resturants.
   Some environmentalists, however, wonder why the subway cars have jumped off the tracks and into the ocean. New Jersey and Ocean City, Md., already have rejected New York City subway cars for their artificial reef programs.
   "We think the subway cars set a new low standard for artificial reef material. There's a fine line between ocean dumping and creation of an artificial reef," said Cindy Zipf, executive director of Clean Ocean Action, a conservation group in Sandy Hook, NJ.
   Zipf served on a state task force to consider whether New Jersey should accept the subway cars. The task force deadlocked, and acting Gov. Donald T. DiFrancesco rejected the proposal.
   "There's been a lot of concern of asbestos in these cars," said Jim Steffens, Delaware chapter chair of the Sierra Club. "but people are really concerned about the general concept of putting junk in the water."
   Backers of the plan - and even some opponents - said that asbestos is only dangerous if it is inhaled, which it will not be under water. And Environmental Protection Agency officials have said the asbestos would not be present in high enough consentrations to harm fish or people.
   Proponents of the project point out that New York City was, in effect, recycling the cars by having them reused as reefs.
   Metropolitan Transportation Authority spokesman Al O'Leary said the agency would save from $10 million to $13 million by giving away the cars instead of recycling them convetually. The MTA is paying about $1.5 million to clean, haul and transport them.
   O'Leary said the barge, guided to the site by a global positioning sytem, was carrying an urban legacy. "This is a little bit of New York history," he said. The Cars, known as Redbirds for their color, were used on the city's numbered subway lines. They are being retired to make way for newer cars. Some of the cars now on the ocean bottom carried baseball fans to and from last year's World Series.
   As the cars sank, dignitaries watching from a nearby ferry toasted them with champagne. A few of the onlookers tossed subway tokens into the ocean and others cast fishing lines.
   "This is a win-win situation," said V. George Carey, a Republican who represents the shore region in the state House of Representatives. "New York is willing to give us these cars that they've cleaned up, and we get a reef where fishermen can go catch fish."
   O'Leary said South Carolina has agreed to take 300 subway cars for its artificial reef program. Talks are continuing with Virginia and New York, he said.
   "You get a biological oasis," said Stewart Farrell, director of the Richard Stockton Coastal Research Center in Pomona, NJ. "That means that the sites are well known and well liked by fishermen." The perspective Delaware fish include black sea bass, gray triggerfish and scup, said Jeff Tinsman, a fisheries scientist with the Delaware Division of Fish & Wildlife.
   Delaware began its program in 1995 and has permits for artificial reefs in 11 sites along its coast, all of which were approved by the National Marine Fisheries Service and the Army Corps of Engineers. Most of the sites are within Delaware Bay, west of Cape May.
   "People tend to dwell on whatever they perceive as the negatives, but this provides more fishing opportunities for everyone," said Jerry Blakeslee, president of the Delaware Captains Associations, a trade group for charter fishing businesses. "When we come in with an excellent catch of fish, that's good for business because it brings people back," he said.

   Sea Tow Atlantic City is involved in the transporting of work personnel to the Delaware site and will continue to do so until the job is completed.