NSU Horizons Fall 2007

horizons 31 training in a real-life environment. Waste tires will be removed from the ocean floor and recycled. Removal and recycling of the tires will turn an environmental hazard into an environmental asset. Coral reef habitat will be restored, and research on coral reef restoration will be promoted through NSU. The military divers will gather and bundle the tires and buoy them to the ocean’s sur- face. The tire retrieval project will serve as a training exercise. The Army is providing a landing craft unit (LCU) that will crane the bundles from the surface and deposit them into cargo containers that will be later transferred to trucks. The Florida Department of Environmental Protection’s con- tractor will haul the tires to a waste tire processing plant in Georgia where they will be processed into tire-derived fuel and sold to a recycled paper plant. Following tire removal, NSU Oceanographic Center NCRI researchers Richard Spieler, Robin Sherman, and graduate student Lance Robinson plan to evaluate the recovery of fish and coral populations on the reef. Their NOAA-funded study will provide resource managers with valuable information on restoration effects and reef recovery times. NCRI has a number of monitoring stations on the reefs and works in coordination with Broward County in a number of reef studies. The state of Florida is spending $2 million on the project to facilitate the removal. Recently, Tim Keeney, the U.S. deputy assistant secretary for oceans and atmosphere and a key high-level figure within the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and Mike Sole, Florida secre- tary of the Department of Environmental Protection, got a firsthand look at reef damage and the repair and recovery efforts. They met with Richard Dodge, NSU NCRI executive director, for consultation on the project. “This work provides a unique opportunity for scientists to examine the effects of the cessation of a major injury to the natural ecosystem,” explained Richard Spieler, professor and NSU NCRI principal investigator. “Will the impacted site return to a natural state similar to surrounding reef? If so, how long will this process take? The answers are of great significance for understanding the current, and directing future, restoration studies.” n recovery waste tire impact The large scale operation to remove the tires is unique and unprecedented. Richard Dodge, Ph.D., is the dean of the NSU Oceanographic Center and executive director of the national Coral Reef Institute at NSU. Wendy Wood, M.A., is administrative coordinator for the National Coral Reef Institute.