February 2010    Download the Entire Issue (PDF)

Vol. 25, No. 2   What's this?

Hawaii Crushes a Reef with 50 Tons of Concrete

from the February, 2010 issue of Undercurrent  

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Hawaii’s Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR) bungled its artificial reef deployment off of South Maui in December, dropping more than 50 tons of concrete modules on top of a pristine Maui reef, virtually destroying it.

The state submerged about 1,400 concrete blocks to expand the artificial reef at Keawakapu Beach, between Kihei and Wailea, and create an additional marine life habitat, but some of the blocks inadvertently landed on live coral. Fragile and endemic finger coral serving as nursery habitat for juvenile fish was crushed by the modules as the DLNR barge dumped its load without anchoring. ...