0:02

Hello, I'm Hannah Gelbart and this

0:05

is what in the world from

0:07

the BBC World Service. We know

0:09

that our oceans and the creatures

0:11

living in them are under

0:13

threat from things like warming

0:15

waters and pollution. Now a

0:17

huge cruise ship is about

0:20

to be sunk on purpose

0:22

to become the world's largest

0:24

artificial reef. The people behind

0:26

it say that it'll improve

0:28

biodiversity, local tourism and fishing.

0:30

But are artificial reefs actually

0:33

good for the environment, or

0:35

even necessary? Here with me in the

0:37

studio to break this down is Georgina

0:39

Ranard, our climate and science reporter.

0:41

Hello, welcome back to the podcast.

0:43

Thank you, Hannah. Good to be

0:45

here. So let's start off with

0:47

this ship. The Great Liner is

0:50

990 feet from stem to stern,

0:52

and she weighs in at 52,000

0:54

tons. The United States will carry

0:56

2,000 passengers. America claims she's the

0:58

finest and fastest ship of flight.

1:01

It's called the SS United States and

1:03

it's absolutely massive. It's longer than the

1:05

Titanic and it is now about to

1:07

go down to the bottom of the

1:10

ocean off the coast of Florida. The

1:12

SS United States paint faded and a

1:14

little rusty left its home of 29

1:17

years in South Philadelphia. A judge ordered

1:19

the ship be evicted from Pier 82.

1:21

With limited options officials from

1:23

Okaloosa County Florida came forward

1:26

and purchased the SS US

1:28

for one million dollars. Its fate

1:30

now... anchored in a project to make

1:32

the mighty liner the largest artificial

1:34

reef in the world. So why is it

1:36

being sunk? So if you think about

1:39

this ship, like you said, it's it's

1:41

huge and it's one of those really

1:43

glitzy glamorous ocean liners from the 1950s.

1:46

The main reason they're doing that, well

1:48

there's two reasons. One is because they

1:50

want to create this artificial reef. Where

1:53

the idea is that when they sink

1:55

it creates this structure that fish octopus

1:57

vertebrate, vertebrate plants can all cod... So

2:00

one is to improve that marine environment

2:02

for those species, but the other is

2:04

really also about tourism. The ship will

2:06

be sunk in Florida where it will

2:09

join tens of other artificial reefs and

2:11

the idea is it would attract... tourists

2:13

bring economic benefit to the area and

2:15

also perhaps encourage divers not to visit

2:18

some of the other more natural reefs

2:20

so kind of moving that tourism away

2:22

from more precious environments like real coral

2:24

reefs. What is the process going to

2:27

involve in order to prepare this ship

2:29

this ocean liner so that it becomes

2:31

an artificial reef? So it's quite a

2:33

long process from beginning to end this

2:36

one will take one and a half

2:38

years that's because as you can imagine

2:40

it's full of contaminated materials. It's got

2:42

metal, plastics, oils, chemicals, and they want

2:45

to clean those out, remove all our

2:47

material, take away the paint. They then

2:49

also have to begin the process of

2:51

sinking the ship, and it is a

2:54

simple... in the past, anyway, as basically

2:56

exploding the ship. So I looked into

2:58

some of the previous ships, so aircraft

3:00

carriers have been sunk there as well,

3:03

and they basically load the bottom of

3:05

the boat, which is underneath the water,

3:07

with explosives, blow them up, and then

3:09

all the water, of course, comes into

3:12

the bottom and it sinks. That for

3:14

this ship for the SS United States

3:16

will cost about 10 million dollars. Some

3:18

studies say that within five years you

3:21

can have an increased number of fish,

3:23

you can have coral and algae growing

3:25

over all of those surfaces. You mentioned

3:27

that this particular ship is going to

3:30

go through a very meticulous preparation process

3:32

to remove some of the contaminants. Is

3:34

there a risk that it still could

3:36

be toxic or polluting to the environment?

3:39

Yeah, I mean, I think it's a

3:41

really good question. In the US, it

3:43

appears to be quite a well-regulated industry.

3:45

There are whole companies that are set

3:48

up just for this process. And that

3:50

process appears to involve quite a lot

3:52

of care. You know, they do decontaminate

3:54

it. They take away those chemicals. But

3:57

of course, there's always a risk that

3:59

the job hasn't... been done properly. There

4:01

are some people who are really unhappy

4:03

about the fact that this ship is

4:05

being sunk because as you set it

4:08

out it's this incredible old piece of

4:10

history essentially and some historians not necessarily

4:12

environmentalists they would rather that it becomes

4:14

a museum. Is making artificial reefs do

4:17

you think just a way for humans

4:19

to get rid of waste items things

4:21

like big old ships that are otherwise

4:23

really difficult to get rid of See,

4:26

I actually think that it's probably quite

4:28

an inconvenient way of disposing of a

4:30

ship because it's very involved process, as

4:32

said earlier, that this one, the SS

4:35

United States, will cost around $10 million

4:37

to turn into an artificial reef. You've

4:39

got all of the cost of the

4:41

decontamination, but also a lot of those

4:44

materials could have been sold off metal,

4:46

scrap metal is very valuable now. But

4:48

I think you're right that... It's quite

4:50

controversial in terms of, if you look

4:53

at the pictures of it, it is

4:55

kind of a stunning ship. It's a

4:57

bit aged now and a bit decrepit,

4:59

but it did have incredible historical value.

5:02

The company behind it would say, well,

5:04

this is a way of preserving its

5:06

legacy, and at least they say it

5:08

will have some value on the sea

5:11

floor. Do you think that we still

5:13

need to be putting more stuff on

5:15

the bottom of the ocean? Do we

5:17

not have enough stuff down there already?

5:20

like you said there's a lot of

5:22

stuff down there there's around three million

5:24

shipwrecks and and similar wrecks on the

5:26

sea floor but the ocean is a

5:29

vast part of our planet there's you

5:31

know it covers a huge area of

5:33

the surface of the earth. So I

5:35

think we're probably not going to run

5:38

out of space any time soon. I

5:40

think the main question is, is this

5:42

really the best way of trying to

5:44

protect marine species who are at threat

5:47

from global warming and pollution in the

5:49

oceans? I think lots of environmentalists would

5:51

say we should be focusing on the

5:53

environments we already have and protecting those,

5:56

rather than trying to create this mixture

5:58

of a bit of tourism, diving, plus

6:00

a place for these species to live.

6:02

it's not just ships. I was reading

6:05

about airplanes, even New York subway cars,

6:07

lots of different things that have been

6:09

sunk to create artificial reefs. One study

6:11

found that artificial reefs cover 19 square

6:14

kilometers, that's seven square miles of the

6:16

US sea floor. I mean, that's tiny

6:18

compared to the size of the sea

6:20

and the oceans. What works best when

6:22

it comes to sinking things to make

6:25

artificial reefs? I was quite surprised when

6:27

I was looking into this, at just

6:29

how many there are. In some countries,

6:31

I think in Japan, they've been doing

6:34

it for 400 years because by creating

6:36

a new environment for species, they can

6:38

attract fish and obviously then they can

6:40

fish there. And in the US, it's

6:43

been going on since the 70s. What

6:45

some of the research says is that

6:47

you need to use materials that are

6:49

good for the environment, they're safe, they're

6:52

pH neutral, they're not changing contaminated materials.

6:54

There was a case where they sunk

6:56

three million tires in the 1970s with

6:58

the idea, again, you would create this

7:01

space for fish and octopus and everything

7:03

else to live in. And that didn't

7:05

work and it released a lot of

7:07

toxins into the environment and they weren't

7:10

anchored properly so they moved and it

7:12

damaged some of the coral in that

7:14

area. So clearly it has to be

7:16

done in the right way. And it

7:19

is not just forms of transport, shall

7:21

we say, old disused items. There are

7:23

lots of reefs, in fact the majority

7:25

of them, that are specifically made for

7:28

this purpose. Can you tell me a

7:30

bit about them and how they're different

7:32

to the ones that we've been talking

7:34

about? Yes, so there are lots of

7:37

different types, but one of the ones

7:39

that I particularly like is one in

7:41

Mexico in the Cancun Marine Park, which

7:43

has gotten moosa, and that one was

7:46

established because the founder said that he

7:48

was concerned about the level of degradation

7:50

and pollution on some of the natural

7:52

coral reefs in that area, and he

7:55

wanted to try and he wanted to

7:57

try and pull some of the to

7:59

those corollaries to a different place. Now

8:01

there's 500 sculptors. and they include sculptures

8:04

of people, but also there's a Volkswagen

8:06

car that's been sunk. And that is

8:08

clearly, you know, it's a very deliberate

8:10

project. They've made these structures and they're

8:13

made of particular types of material that

8:15

are considered beneficial or neutral to the

8:17

environment. That one is one project, but

8:19

it's also a practice that's used to

8:22

protect seagrass meadows or coral reefs where

8:24

they build, they look like these sort

8:26

of... cones and they've got holes in

8:28

them so you can sort of imagine

8:31

the species moving through them. Some of

8:33

them are done in order to protect

8:35

coastlines from erosion or from huge amounts

8:37

of sand that move in storms and

8:40

then the secondary effect is that it

8:42

creates this reef for species to live

8:44

in. So there are lots of different

8:46

types. So is there any evidence that

8:48

these artificial reefs whether they're these amazing

8:51

statues that you've described or sunken ships?

8:53

Is there any evidence that they actually

8:55

help the ocean and ocean creatures? So

8:57

we don't really know what the long-term

9:00

impacts are. They're quite difficult to study

9:02

because you can't control the variable. So

9:04

you don't know if because you sank

9:06

that ship or that those species have

9:09

moved there. There are quite a lot

9:11

of studies that show that in the

9:13

short term you do have a bloom

9:15

of life. So fish do move there,

9:18

they colonize, that creates this nutrient cycle,

9:20

for example. that generates plant growth and

9:22

coral growth. But there are also examples

9:24

where non-native species can colonize that area

9:27

because it's obviously not a natural environment,

9:29

so it might attract invasive species, invasive

9:31

fish, and that obviously has a knock-on

9:33

effect on the environment. There was another

9:36

case in Puerto Rico where a concrete

9:38

reef was created to protect the coastline,

9:40

and in the short term there was

9:42

a growth in fish and in coral.

9:45

but there was also a bloom in

9:47

seaweed because of this imbalance in nutrients.

9:49

There was too much oxygen and therefore

9:51

there was excessive nutrients and that led

9:54

to some of the coral to die.

9:56

And there's also concerns that that moves

9:58

them away. from more natural environments where

10:00

you have a sort of proper functioning

10:03

ecology and you may be disrupting that

10:05

by placing these artificial structures there. Although

10:07

as you say it also moves the

10:09

tourists away and that could in the

10:12

longer term help some of these corals

10:14

that might be a little bit over-visited.

10:16

Absolutely, I think that's one of the

10:18

main reasons that people want to do

10:21

it. It's the idea that if you've

10:23

got this one beautiful coral reef and

10:25

everyone's going there, why not try and

10:27

divert them almost by creating a different

10:30

environment. But I think in the long

10:32

term, we're never going to, you can't

10:34

replace coral reefs with artificial reefs. That's

10:36

not how the environment works. And so

10:39

you need to kind of, you need

10:41

to maintain both. You may want to

10:43

focus on those as a diversion for

10:45

tourists, but I think a lot of

10:48

environments would say we still need to

10:50

protect our coral reefs and make sure

10:52

that we're, that they're not going to

10:54

die out with increased pollution and ocean

10:57

warming. Thanks Hannah. And thank you for

10:59

joining us. I'm Hannah Gelbart. This is

11:01

What in the World from the BBC

11:03

World Service and we'll be back with

11:05

another episode soon. See you then.