NJ's artifical reef gets a new old ferryboat

Another ship sunk, and divers cheer

There's a less-famous underworld in New Jersey, one where people swim with the fish instead of "sleeping" with them.

This underworld features ships, barges and even subway cars. But the real stars are the more than 200 species of fish and invertebrates that populate the 25 miles of artificial material purposely dumped on the ocean bottom to provide homes for them.

On Wednesday, state officials added to the scenery by scuttling a ferryboat about eight miles off Cape May at one of 14 artificial reef sites established along the Jersey Shore.

The boat, like the 135 sent to the bottom before it, is intended to take the place of rock formations, which don't exist in the flat, sandy bottom of the continental shelf. Such solid structures provide habitats for crustaceans and microorganisms that fish eat. More food means more fish, and that makes the ocean more lucrative for fishermen and more interesting for divers.

"There's nothing divers love to look at more than an intact sunken ship," said Steve Nagiewicz, who runs a dive boat company and operates a Web site - njscuba.com - that lists New Jersey's popular dive locations.

The 120-foot-long ferryboat Elizabeth was built in 1901 and originally plied the Hudson between Jersey City and lower Manhattan. It was the last steam ferry on that route. It had been docked in Philadelphia for many years and was used most recently as a restaurant.

The boat was cleaned and stripped of its pilot houses before a hole cut in one of its watertight compartments sent it to Davy Jones' locker.

The artificial reefs have been credited with making fish and lobster more plentiful, and that makes diving more interesting. Their well-mapped locations in New Jersey's cold and cloudy gray waters also make diving easier.

In addition to decommissioned ships, boats, tankers and barges, the state Department of Environmental Protection - in partnership with diving and fishing groups - has tossed chunks of steel and concrete, known as "reef balls," and various other material over the side since the program began in 1984. The program was largely uncontroversial until the sinking two years ago of 250 former New York City subway cars.

The subway car dumping prompted some fishing and diving groups to break ranks with environmental groups, which tried to block the sea bottom express because of concerns that the asbestos floor tiles would deteriorate and contaminate the waters.

Divers now say the subway cars are far from must-see locations.

"It's a one-dive-only trip," said Glenn Arthur, chairman of the New Jersey Council of Diving Organizations. "Once you get down there to see them, all there is to look at are subway cars."

The cars probably will deteriorate into "lumps of steel" in another decade, but what will be left behind is "a whole column of marine life that will be amazing to see," Nagiewicz said. "Fish moved in the day they went down."

The artificial reef sites - while lacking the history and lore of sunken freighters, galleons and cruise ships - are great for novice divers and others not familiar with the locations of the thousands of historic wrecks along the coast, Nagiewicz said.

But funding to buy and sink decommissioned ships is hard to come by. The ferryboat sunk Wednesday was one of three bought with a $100,000 DEP appropriation. In May, a Navy tanker was sunk at a different location and another Navy tanker will be scuttled later this summer, officials said. [originially published by Northjersey.com, Colleen Diskin writer].