Osborne Reef Tire Removal

Deep below the ocean’s surface, just over a mile off the Ft. Lauderdale shoreline, lie nearly one million used automobile tires. Plummeted to their destination 60-70 feet below the surface during the 1970s, the intentions were to establish a unique artificial reef that would benefit marine life while preventing a towering mountain of black rubber in Florida landfills.

The tires, stretching nearly four miles in length and covering about 34 acres, lie amidst the third largest coral reef system in the world – an underground garden of vibrant hard and soft corals including elkhorn, staghorn and sea fans.

While the original intention was commendable, most of the tires have been displaced after years of weathering currents and storms. Many have made their way to shore -- while those remaining are a threat to the fragile skeletal coral sculptures growing about the ocean floor.

A pilot project conducted in 2001 by Nova Southeastern University determined the Osborne Reef tire removal and disposal project to be important to protect the natural reefs in the area. In 2006, a group of federal, state and local agencies executed a reconnaissance mission to determine if these tires could be removed in a coordinated recovery effort. This team discovered that few, if any, living organisms were attached to the tires and these could be easily removed and transplanted to a safe location during the recovery operation.

Governor Charlie Crist appropriated $2 million in the “People’s Budget” for the much needed Osborne Reef project, available through the Solid Waste Management Trust Fund. The removal process is underway and will continue for about three years.

”Although DEP has years of experience managing tire abatement projects, this unique project involves a partnership of agencies coming together to craft a solution to this ongoing environmental threat to the Osborne Reef,” said Mary Jean Yon, Director of DEP’s Division of Waste Management. “It will be the first underwater waste tire site to be abated by the DEP waste tire management program.”

The order in which the tires are removed will be based on their proximity and potential effect on nearby natural reef systems. Once recovered and processed, the tires will tentatively be sold for energy applications. The future of a proportionally small number of remaining tires that are either stable or hosting living organisms will be determined in the final phase of the project.

The Osborne Reef Tire Removal project is a joint effort between DEP, the Broward County Environmental Protection Department, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Marine Debris Program, Port Everglades, the U.S. Navy’s Mobile Diving Salvage Unit, the U.S. Army’s 7th Transportation Group, and the U.S. Coast Guard.

Learn more about Osborne Reef.