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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/xrc20 on 2024-07-03 01:53:31+00:00.
Original Title: TIL that 2 million discarded tires were deliberately dumped off the coast of Florida in the 1970’s, with the intent to stimulate growth of new coral reefs. Instead, the tires ended up killing off nearby reefs. The tires are still causing damage today.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
In the early 1970s, a group of fishermen organized a campaign to dump 2 million used auto tires into the Atlantic Ocean, about a mile off the coast of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., between two living coral reefs.
William Nuckols, with Coastal America, the federal office that is helping coordinate a cleanup of the tires, says the original goal was a good one.
For two weeks this month, the military divers worked to remove tires from the area where they’ve done the most damage, scrubbing most of the sea life off what once was a living reef.
For years, county and state officials wanted to remove the tires, but didn’t have the estimated $30 million it would take to hire private contractors.
Nuckols says the final piece fell into place when Florida allocated $2 million to cover the cost of transporting and recycling the tires.
There may be no one happier about the progress in cleaning up Florida’s tire reef than Ken Banks, a marine biologist with Broward County’s Department of Environmental Protection.
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