Tugboat And Rail Car Sink Into The Atlantic Ocean To Form Artificial Reef Off Long Island

A tugboat named Jane and a steel rail car were sunk into the Atlantic Ocean on Wednesday as a part of an effort to build out an artificial reef off the coast of Long Island.

Eventually, another 15 rail cars will be dumped into the ocean to attract marine life to the reef, a part of an expansion of the artificial reefs in New York to be complete by 2022.

"As quick as we put the materials down in the water, we begin to see life," Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner Basil Seggos said at a press conference held on a boat off Long Island, where reporters watched a rail car being dumped into the ocean. "It begins to teem with life."

Tautog and porgy fish first take shelter in the reef, about 50 feet below the surface and three miles south of Jones Beach State Park in the ocean. Anemones, sponges, and mussels then build out the living part of the reef to "create that food chain," Seggos said. Lobsters and crabs move in. Dolphins, sharks, and striped bass arrive to feed on the smaller animals.

"We're beyond the inflection point on the environment," Seggos said. "You look at the skies above upstate New York this morning, and they had a yellowish tint from the fires in the west. Our country is literally burning as a result of climate change."

The artificial reef will attract marine life to aide biodiversity and improve the local fishing and diving industries. The state's environmental conservation department manages a dozen reefs.

The MTA ran a program from 2001 to 2010 in which some 2,500 steel train cars were dropped off the East Coast from Georgia to New Jersey, creating a habitat where fish swim through cars once packed with subway riders.

Subway cars used to be dumped into the sea, but today's cars are made from aluminum, easily destroyed by the ocean currents. For the latest artificial reef expansion, about 75 rail cars provided by the Wells Fargo Rail Corporation were used, which once carried lumber and are made from steel.

Hempstead Reef already has materials from torn-down bridges and other structures that were sunken in the past two years, according to the governor's office.

"These artificial reefs—our children will thank us for them years from now," Governor Andrew Cuomo said from the news conference held on a moving boat. "These reefs start to develop a fishery, literally within months."

Watch a rail car plunge into the ocean at around 31:50 in the video below: