http://www.shutter.fi/truk/smoking.htm
Posted on 07/24/2007 8:08:52 AM PDT by Mr. Silverback
FORT EUSTIS, Va. - Soldiers from the 97th Transportation Company recently returned from an unconventional mission - recovering thousands of tires from off the Florida coast in an effort to dismantle the world's largest man-made reef.
The 15 Soldiers spent two and a half months off the Florida coast, conducting training operations for dive teams. They then traveled down coast to Fort Lauderdale, where they began a historic effort in environmental preservation.
"In 1972, a number of organizations with good intentions dropped about two million tires in the Atlantic Ocean in an effort to build the world's largest man-made reef," said Chief Warrant Officer Shane Sherrad, vessel master for the LCU-2017, El Caney. "In reality, nothing grew, and the tires began to drift, damaging the existing reefs on either side of the man made reef. Our job was to figure out how to recover the tires in order to protect the other reefs."
Some of the hundreds of thousands of tires lining the ocean bottom have begun to wash up on local shores and into existing marine life, making them a hazardous presence on the ocean floor. The mission is an unconventional one, and the LCU crew faced the task with no existing template of how to complete the project.
Upon arriving in Florida, the Soldiers were given several plans for completing the mission.
"We reviewed those plans, told them what would work and what wouldn't. In the end, we tried three different plans and chose the best from there," Sherrad said.
The crew settled on a plan that had them take position between the two live reefs running parallel with the coast, where divers would bundle approximately 50 to 60 tires together with a steel cable. The tires were then brought to the surface with lift bags and towed into the LCU, lifted with a crane and dropped into the containers.
The operation was an exercise in environmental responsibility. After the tires were collected, they were transported to a Georgia facility where they will be burned to create energy to power a recycling plant.
"The whole mission was about recycle, recycle, recycle," Sherrad said.
The Eustis LCU crew manned the boat for the entire mission, with Army, Navy and Coast Guard divers participating together to recover the tires.
"It was a great experience, being with the three branches and working there together," said Staff Sgt. Don Morales, who worked on the deck, bringing on containers and tires and doing other maintenance to ensure the boat was in peak performance.
The crew got no small share of media attention, with people from CNN, Discovery and a number of area newspapers and television stations reporting the mission.
"It's such a significant environmental issue," Sherrad said. "There were individuals from Germany and England there. There was a big interest in how we were doing it, because others would like to be able to take on projects like this themselves. We're taking down the world's largest artificial reef. It had never been done before, and we had to find a way to do it."
The mission was an opportunity for the Army to showcase its skills in environmental protection.
"The Army goes well above and beyond the civilian environmental laws," Sherrod said. "There isn't a civilian company out there who sticks to the same environmental standards the Army does."
Sgt. 1st Class Jose Lopez acted as the second in command. "On a daily basis, everything we do is about environmental protection," he said.
In addition to helping the environment, the mission also helped save Florida millions of dollars. The project would have taken $20 million to complete using civilian funds, but will cost just $2 million with the military taking the helms.
The Soldiers moved thousands of tires during the mission, and it is slated to continue into 2010. Summer crews of Army vessels and divers will continue to visit the coasts of Florida each summer and remove the tires.
Editor's note: Lindy Dinklage works for the Fort Eustis Public Affairs Office.
Let's see... it was "recycle" when the tires were stacked in large storage lots to be ground into material used for paving, or energy, or whatever.
Then it was "recycle, recycle" when the tires were dropped into the ocean to make a reef to improve the habitat for sea life.
Now it is "recycle, recycle, recycle" when the tires are laboriously retrieved from the ocean floor and shipped to incinerators who will use the tires to create energy.
Two-hundred years from now, it will be "recycle, recycle, recycle, recycle, recycle, recycle, recycle, recycle, recycle, recycle, recycle, recycle, recycle, recycle, recycle, recycle, recycle, recycle, recycle, recycle, recycle, recycle, recycle, recycle, recycle", when the tires are dug up from a landfill in Nevada and transported to factories to grind them up and make low-cost housing for the homeless.
Somebody needs to keep an eye on these tires, because I don't think they are ever going away.
Again, I question the need for an army’s “skills in environmental protection.” In fact, an army’s duties, quite often run counter to “environmental protection.” I fear the day when some future tank commander in a hostile conflict directs his vehicles to avoid protected vernal pools that may lie in the most direct path to an enemy.
Never heard of the Army Corps Of Engineers, huh? If you’re building on a site and have to impact federal wetlands, who do you think handles the review process?
This statement will be applied to genetic engineering and global warming next.
Yep. Most of my 20+ years were as an Army Sailor.
For Army sailors and divers, this is great training. Every soldier is not combat arms - some transport the bullet launchers, beans and bullets - and clear underwater areas to construct needed ports. This fits in with harbor clearance
I never said they shouldn’t be doing it.
See post #13
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1870775/posts?page=13#13
My dive tables aren’t handy, but from what I remember of the tables, your “hours” estimate is pretty far off.
I, for one, hope the solution involves explosives...lots of explosives.
Especially if they film it. :-)
Again, I question the need for an army's "skills in environmental protection."
It's PR - "environmental protection" makes points with the leftists - and they now control the military purse strings. The soldiers involved couldn't care less what the press release calls it. They are practicing the skills they need to do their job, and (experience talking now) it's a lot better than hauling empty boxes and containers from point A to point B, and for the divers a lot better than retrieving flags or markers. They are actually accomplishing something.
The entire thing could hae been nipped in the bud at the moment of inception if a ten year old had shown them 60’s era National Geographic photos of underwater WWII wrecks in the Pacific. Coral encrusted much of the ships, except for the tires of trucks, motorcycles, etc that had spilled from the holds. In those photos the contrast between rubber and metal was startling. Wire wheels with coral and absolutely clean tires.
Any serious sport diver could have told them the same.
“Dude...bad idea. You’ve like never, ever really been diving have you? Watching Mike Nelson on Sea Hunt and Cousteau specials is a non-qualifier.”
Soldiers Once Again Fix Sorry-Assed, Simple minded Kumbaya Reef Building Attempts"
http://www.shutter.fi/truk/smoking.htm
700,000 bottles of beer on the wall...
It’s not just the part under water. They have to get the ship out to the area, prep for the dive, then they dive and tie up the tires, then they have to haul them up. If they can lift them on the boat, then they have to prep for the next dive. At the end of the day, they have to take them back to shore, and unload them.
I don’t know how deep the tires are, but if they are deep enough there’s a long time getting down and back up as well.
Dude, you know the mods will be on my case if I change article titles. :-)
Mr. Silverback I meant that the source should have had a better headline.
I do believe that my suggestion would have been a hit with the target audience.
;>)
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