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| Trainyard On the Ocean Floor |
 The Redbird Reef, 16 nautical miles from the Indian River Inlet and 80 feet below the water's surface off the coast of Delaware, is in the middle of a building boom. Hundreds of New York City subway cars have been pushed off of a barge to become an artificial reef. "They're basically luxury condominiums for fish," Jeff Tinsman, artificial reef program mangager for the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environment Control, told the New York Times.
Named after New York City's Redbird subway cars, the reef is a hodge podge of unused items. A 92 year old tug boat was scuttled last year as was a 175 foot decommissioned Navy tanker. New York City provides the subway cars for free.
Over 600 of the cars have already been sent to the ocean floor but few more appear to be joining them. New York State wants to keep the cars as the Army Corps of Engineers updates the state's reef permit this summer. The Redbird Reef has shown them the possibilities of their own refuse.
Transformed from a desolate ocean floor into a blooming jungle of sea grasses, the subway cars are now overgrown with blue mussels and sponges while tautog and black sea bass flit through the openings. Tuna and mackerel are drawn to the reefs to hunt smaller prey and sea bass live inside the cars. Flounder hide on the silt that rests on top of the cars. This former underwater desert has gotten a second life.
In 1997, only 300 trips asea took place in this are, now there are 10,000 annually as summer flounder and bass compete for space and commercial fisherman vie for the same angling space as families out for the day. A 40-fold increase in marine food per square foot has taken place over the last seven years.
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