In the midst of wars and providing relief for Haiti, there apparently aren’t enough funds left for the environment. Or at least not in Florida where over 500,000 tires, as well as nylon and steel, were sunk in 1972 with the intention of creating an artificial reef offshore near Ft. Lauderdale. Not very surprising, the sea life wasn’t too happy with the newest addition to its waters, and decided they didn’t want to live on tires. Can you blame them?
Thousands have become wedged against a natural coral reef, which causes the sea life to be unable to thrive, as well as block coral growth. Other tires have since spread out across the ocean floor over the span of 30 football fields. The clean-up program, set to return this summer, will not be able to do so until at least 2012. With approximately 10% of the tires pulled up, there is still hundreds of thousands left.
Divers who participate in the program are from the U.S. Army and Navy, and are only able to do the clean-up on weather-specific days (calm waters and warm weather). The state is unable to fulfill the needs on their own, needing government help to clean-up the oceans; the state of Florida has already given 2 million dollars to provide for the program, and nearly $250,000 has been used. The original goal was to have 300,000 tires removed, with 50,000 of them this summer, but will not be able to happen now.
Understandably, the government does have its priorities for where funds are allocated to, but these tires are devastating the marine life in the oceans. It seems that there should be funds somewhere that are kept for things like this- but there doesn’t seem to be.
Thousands have become wedged against a natural coral reef, which causes the sea life to be unable to thrive, as well as block coral growth. Other tires have since spread out across the ocean floor over the span of 30 football fields. The clean-up program, set to return this summer, will not be able to do so until at least 2012. With approximately 10% of the tires pulled up, there is still hundreds of thousands left.
Divers who participate in the program are from the U.S. Army and Navy, and are only able to do the clean-up on weather-specific days (calm waters and warm weather). The state is unable to fulfill the needs on their own, needing government help to clean-up the oceans; the state of Florida has already given 2 million dollars to provide for the program, and nearly $250,000 has been used. The original goal was to have 300,000 tires removed, with 50,000 of them this summer, but will not be able to happen now.
Understandably, the government does have its priorities for where funds are allocated to, but these tires are devastating the marine life in the oceans. It seems that there should be funds somewhere that are kept for things like this- but there doesn’t seem to be.
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