Could our trash become local fishes’ treasure?

Helicopters. Cargo containers. Old washing machines. For years, fishermen dumped this waste into the Gulf of Mexico. But they weren’t just trying to get rid of junk; they were trying to create artificial reefs that would help attract fish. For this month’s Nature Quest, WWNO coastal reporter Eva Tesfaye https://www.wwno.org/people/eva-tesfaye takes a (metaphorical) dive into the gulf to find out if Alabama’s ocean junkyard is an economic – and environmental – solution. Want to learn more about artificial reefs? Check out WWNO's podcast Sea Change https://www.wwno.org/podcast/sea-change for more reporting from Eva and her colleagues. This episode is part of Nature Quest, our monthly segment that brings you a question from a Short Waver who is noticing a change in the world around them. Send a voice memo to [email protected] mailto:[email protected] telling us your name, location and a question about a change you're seeing in nature – it could be our next Nature Quest episode! Listen to every episode of Short Wave sponsor-free and support our work at NPR by signing up for Short Wave+ at plus.npr.org/shortwave http://plus.npr.org/shortwave. See pcm.adswizz.com https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy https://www.npr.org/about-npr/179878450/privacy-policy

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:12Emily Kwong?

  You're listening to Short Wave from NPR.

• 0:18Emily Kwong?

  Hey, Short Wavers. Emily Kwong here. And for this month's Nature Quest, I'm joined by Eva Tessvi, former Short Wave producer and the current Coastal Reporter at WWNO, New Orleans Public Radio. Hi, Eva.

• 0:30Speaker 02

  Hey, Emily. So, did you know that in the 80s, people purposefully dumped a lot of weird stuff in the Gulf of Mexico?

• 0:37Speaker 03

  I've done Cobra helicopters, old washer machines tied together. Does a sunken shrimp boat count? Old boating machines tied together.

• 0:47Emily Kwong?

  It's trash. Why would people be dumping trash into the Gulf of Mexico?

• 0:51Speaker 02

  They were trying to create artificial reefs. Those are man-made structures placed in the water to create habitat for fish. Basically, fishermen realized they could put pretty much anything in the water, and the fish would gather around it.

• 1:04Speaker 04

  In Mississippi, we call that a honey hole. And if you can go to the honey hole and catch fish every time, you're gonna keep going back.

• 1:12Speaker 02

  That's Mississippi House Representative, Republican Mike E. Zell. He and some others recently introduced a bipartisan bill to streamline a federal program that turns retired oil rigs into artificial reefs.

• 1:24Emily Kwong?

  This is so interesting. I've never heard of artificial reefs as a way to attract fish.

• 1:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, Emily, there are two places in the world with the largest amount of reefs. Can you guess which ones they are?

• 1:34Emily Kwong?

  Like Australia? I guess I'm thinking of the Great Barrier Reef, though. Like, these are not-- this is a washing machine reef, so where?

• 1:42Speaker 02

  So, the first one is Japan, which, by some accounts, has been using artificial reefs since the 1600s to attract fish.

• 1:49Emily Kwong?

  Huge fishing economy in Japan. That makes sense. Okay. What's the other one?

• 1:53Speaker 02

  The other one, I don't think you would have guessed. It's the state of Alabama. Alabama has a tiny stretch of coastline, just 53 miles. So, that's really small compared to, like, Japan or even Louisiana. But that coastline hosts more than 10,000 artificial reefs. And most of them haven't been put there just in the last 30 years. And so, I wanted to answer a question for myself. Can trash ever be a good thing for the environment?

• 2:19Emily Kwong?

  Today on the show, artificial reefs. What makes fish attracted to them? And why Alabama has become one of the artificial reef capitals of the world? You're listening to Short Wave, the science podcast from NPR.

• 2:35Speaker 05

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• 3:55Emily Kwong?

  OK, Eva, so this segment is known as Nature Quest, where we try to figure out a mystery unfolding in a local ecosystem. And I got to say, the question of why fish would be attracted to an ocean junkyard is one of the strangest mysteries I've ever heard. How does that even happen?

• 4:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, so I should clarify, there are laws now regulating what you can put in the water.

• 4:17Emily Kwong?

  OK.

• 4:17Speaker 02

  It's less helicopters and washing machines nowadays, and usually these reefs designed out of concrete and rocks. But to answer your earlier question, most of the Gulf Coast has this vast, empty, sandy bottom. It's a really great habitat for shrimp, which, you know, is good for the Gulf's big commercial shrimping industry. But to find the hard structures that reef fish are attracted to, you have to go pretty far offshore. Back in the eighties, people start to realize fish would be attracted to basically any hard structure you put in the water. The washing machines, the helicopters, the voting machines.

• 4:53Emily Kwong?

  Interesting. Why would fish be attracted to any hard structure? How does that even work?

• 4:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, so I spoke to a scientist at the University of South Alabama in Mobile to answer that question. His name is Sean Powers, and he showed me this underwater video of a cargo container that was converted into an artificial reef. So we'll use that as an example.

• 5:13Speaker 03

  That's an old cargo container that's been weighted down to put there, and it's kind of rusted a little away.

• 5:20Speaker 02

  And you want to put it somewhere where it's not going to interfere with existing reefs, which is why the Gulf Coast with its empty bottom is perfect.

• 5:27Speaker 03

  The other thing you can see is that what that system would be is just sand. Those fish would not be there if it wasn't for that reef.

• 5:41Speaker 02

  And in Alabama, they've designated a thousand-square-mile zone where you can put the artificial reefs. One person I talked to that designs artificial reefs said he finds Florida limestone works best for attracting sea life.

• 5:54Emily Kwong?

  Shout out, Florida limestone. Okay, so what happens next?

• 5:58Speaker 02

  After it's dropped in the water, within a matter of weeks, algae and barnacles will start to grow.

• 6:03Speaker 03

  So the algae serves as the base of the food web, then there's small shrimp-like creatures that will feed on that, and then there's barnacles and crusting animals that the fish will feed on.

• 6:16Speaker 02

  So that's what attracts the fish, which is really the goal.

• 6:19Emily Kwong?

  Mmm, food.

• 6:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, and Sean says they're attracted to the container, one, because of the food, and two, because of the protection it offers from predators.

• 6:30Speaker 03

  When you see a shark swim through there, they will all seek the cover of the reef.

• 6:37Speaker 02

  So in the video we watched, there were hundreds of fish. And that's a fact because the university sends out these ocean robots to film the reefs and see how successful the reefs are. And it turns out, they are pretty successful. Yeah. Can you talk about that more, Eva? Like, what's in it for the state of Alabama to support artificial reefs? So in Alabama, the goal is really to attract these coveted fish that sports fishermen like to catch. Like, for example, grouper and a Gulf Coast favorite, red snapper. Some listeners might already know that the population of red snapper in the Gulf was on the brink of collapse in the 90s due to overfishing. It's recovered now, partly thanks to federal and state governments dealing with the overfishing in various ways.

• 7:21Speaker 02

  But here's a quote from Sean to give you an understanding of how important red snapper is in Alabama.

• 7:27Speaker 06

  People, I think, believe it's a constitutional right for them to be able to go out and catch their red snapper.

• 7:34Speaker 02

  I actually checked the Alabama Constitution. And obviously, the right to capture red snapper is not actually in there, but the right to hunt and fish is. Really? Huh. Yeah. And almost everybody I talked to in Alabama said the artificial reefs also helped the population of red snapper recover in those waters. Wow. Plus, artificial reefs have been huge for Alabama's coastal tourism economies. So there's all these charter fishermen there that will take people out to fish for sport. And I talked to about five of them, and all but one fishes off of some sort of artificial reef. There's also, you know, seaside restaurants that serve fish like snapper. There's hotels, snorkeling, scuba diving. Even the tourism ads for Alabama's beaches reference the artificial reefs.

• 8:19Speaker 07

  Did you know the waters off of Gulf Shores and Orange Beach, Alabama, are considered some of the richest in the country? This area is also home to one of the country's largest artificial fishing reefs. Come discover a new state of excitement when you reel in the big one on the Alabama Gulf Coast.

• 8:38Emily Kwong?

  Wow. My environmental brain, though, is wondering, like, are there any, there have to be some drawbacks to putting man-made structures in the water to become reefs, right?

• 8:46Speaker 02

  Well, yes, of course. So you know how I said the empty sandy bottom off the Gulf Coast is better for shrimp?

• 8:52Emily Kwong?

  Yeah.

• 8:53Speaker 02

  So probably one of the most vocal opponents to artificial reefs are shrimpers.

• 8:58Emily Kwong?

  Shrimpers like people who catch shrimp in the Gulf?

• 9:00Speaker 02

  Yes. And so they're trawling. So they're like dragging these nets across the ocean floor. And if they accidentally trawl over one of these artificial reefs, their equipment could get damaged. So they'll lose time and money, and that makes areas functionally off limits to shrimpers.

• 9:17Emily Kwong?

  Though trawling isn't good for the environment either because of the bycatch issue. When you pick up stuff that you're not supposed to catch. Complicated, complicated. Are there any other drawbacks?

• 9:27Speaker 02

  Yeah. So the other drawback has to do with this scientific debate called attraction versus production. And this is a question for any habitat you're creating, even on land. The question is, are these reefs actually producing more fish than were here before?

• 9:43Emily Kwong?

  Wait, so by producing, you mean like, is the fish population that's coming having babies? In ways they wouldn't if the reef were not here?

• 9:50Speaker 02

  Yes. Is it becoming a habitat for the fish and are there more fish in the end?

• 9:54Emily Kwong?

  Yeah.

• 9:55Speaker 02

  But on the other side, fishermen are the ones placing down these reefs, 80% of them. So the artificial reefs might not be producing more fish at all. They might just be attracting the fish to a place where they're easier to catch. And then the fishermen catch them and that doesn't allow them to live longer and reproduce.

• 10:14Emily Kwong?

  I was wondering about this, if, if in fact the reefs were concentrations of fish, but the biomass wasn't like increasing because of them, you know?

• 10:23Speaker 02

  Exactly. That's the question.

• 10:25Emily Kwong?

  Yeah. Do we know the answer?

• 10:27Speaker 02

  The answer, according to Sean's research, depends on how close you place the reefs to the shore and therefore how easy it is for fishermen to access. And so a lot of Sean's research now is about planning where these reefs Go a bit more to make sure the reefs are more on the production side. That includes putting them further away from the coast so that fishermen can't get to them as easily. But it also means putting some more inshore closer to the estuary where baby fish can use them to survive longer.

• 10:58Emily Kwong?

  So in both cases, it's like taking the reefs outside the sweet spot for fishermen.

• 11:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly.

• 11:04Emily Kwong?

  I mean, big picture, Eva, the fish wouldn't be there if the reefs weren't there. So like, are there ethical questions that come up for you or came up for any of the scientists you talk to?

• 11:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, I asked a few scientists about this. It's always interesting when you're asking scientists to get a little philosophical. And Sean, you know, he would say, yes, that's exactly right. We are altering the environment, but that's what humans do.

• 11:26Speaker 06

  It's a value decision because the public and the state resource agencies and even the federal agencies have decided that transition is worth more to the public. Now that worth could be dollars, that worth could be enjoyment. But yeah, we are altering the ecosystem and that's what humans do. They alter the ecosystem.

• 11:50Speaker 02

  But I also spoke to Edward Camp. He's a scientist at the University of Florida that looks at how governments manage fisheries and aquaculture. And when I asked him this, he got very thoughtful and quiet and basically said, maybe we need to rethink how we manage fisheries entirely.

• 12:07Speaker 08

  As humans, are we willing to acknowledge that maybe sometimes it just has to be enough? Maybe I don't need to catch more fish. Maybe I don't have to always catch larger fish. It's an uncomfortable question because it runs counter to some of the most powerful concepts running through society, which is positive economic growth, capitalism, other concepts that extend well beyond reefs.

• 12:30Speaker 02

  You know, lately, as I report in Louisiana, I struggle with this idea that humans in nature are these separate things where one imposes its will on the other. People have been using some form of artificial reefs for centuries. And even though here on the Gulf Coast, we haven't always been doing them in the most environmentally friendly way, like the washing machines. I think there's people like Sean Powers that are out there trying to make them better. And then I think there's also people like Edward Camp, asking that question of when do we stop? When is it enough?

• 13:01Emily Kwong?

  The push and pull. I am so glad you came on the show. Thank you so much for sharing with us what you found at the bottom of the sea, Eva.

• 13:09Speaker 02

  Thanks for having me. I'm so happy to be back.

• 13:13Emily Kwong?

  If you liked this episode, make sure to follow us on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts, because it really helps the show. And if you want to learn more about artificial reefs, check out WWNO's podcast, Sea Change. Eva and her colleagues have more reporting there, too.

• 13:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, I went to Alabama and I met a chartered fisherman, a chef, and an artificial reef builder. Two of those people are reality TV stars. You'll have to listen to find out who. Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 13:41Emily Kwong?

  Also, short Waver. If you have a question about how your local environment is changing, email it to us, record a voice memo, and send it to [email protected]. We may look into it for a future episode of Nature Quest.

• 13:58Emily Kwong?

  This episode was produced by Hannah Shin. It was edited by Rebecca Ramirez. Tyler Jones checked the facts. Robert Rodriguez was the audio engineer. Sam Paulson composed and produced our Nature Quest theme music. We publish new episodes every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday. Thanks for listening to Short Wave from NPR.

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