Word: reefs
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...diver who scoped the 50-foot-deep waters off Palm Beach before the state could examine the damage called it the worst he's ever seen from a single incident. Added Ed Tichenor, director of Palm Beach County Reef Rescue, who reported the damage to state agencies: "As far as I've been diving here, I haven't heard of a similar incident of this magnitude." The other damaged reef is located off a state park just south of Port Everglades. There, sponges have been sliced, and soft and hard corals cut and turned over. (See pictures of imperiled coral...
State crews will monitor the Breakers reef, a popular diving spot, next week, weather-permitting, in order to curtail private divers from entering the damaged area and flipping and moving corals. Those divers may believe they are doing good but such movement may actually further damage the reef and inhibit government restoration efforts. Sponges should be left to recover alone; but damaged brain, maze, great star and other hard corals will have to be cemented in placed at their old location. Such hard corals are so sensitive and take decades to grow back, at a rate of a few centimeters...
Aside from providing homes for fish life and plants, coral reefs also produce billions of dollars in related eco-tourism and thousands of jobs in South Florida. They are also a buffer for beach erosion, a problem exacerbated by each new oceanside high-rise condo, as well as the storms and hurricanes that have battered Florida over the last four years. A joint federal and state study released in 2001 showed the reef-related economy - including money spent by eco-tourists for diving, chartering boats and the like - resulted in a $4 billion industry and more than 35,000 jobs...
Nevertheless, the reefs are declining because of human activity. A 2008 report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration concluded that half of the U.S. reef ecosystem is in poor or fair condition and it foresees no improvement in the future. "Reefs all over the world and in the U.S. are suffering," says Dr. Richard Dodge, dean of Nova Southeastern University's Oceanographic Center in Dania Beach, Fla. Vessel-related damage continues to be a big problem, and the two latest incidents are just "one more nail in the coffin...
What makes the latest damage to the reefs so heartbreaking is that the condition of south Florida's reef ecosystem seemed to be improving this year, if ever so slightly. The state seemed to be doing its share to safeguard the natural treasure. Lawmakers, for example, agreed to a long-term timeline to prohibit water utilities from dumping partially-treated sewage into the ocean. Federal and state agencies also finally moved a commercial ship anchorage that had caused years of sustained reef damage off Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale...