By Martin Weil
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, May 10, 2008

Subway cars that once carried commuters beneath the sidewalks of New York are to be dumped into the Atlantic Ocean next week to house marine life in the waters near Ocean City, authorities said.

Ceremonies will be held Tuesday as subway cars are pushed from a barge at a site about 19 miles southeast of the Maryland coastal resort, according to an announcement from the Maryland Artificial Reef Initiative.

The initiative is a coalition of groups sharing an interest in improving the environment below the surface of Maryland waters.

The initiative was involved in dumping more than 1,000 tons of debris from the old Woodrow Wilson Bridge into the Chesapeake Bay.

In recent years, outdated subway cars have become a widely sought-after material for creating artificial reefs.

Among the advantages of using subway cars, specialists say, are their spacious interiors, their weight, which makes them resistant to currents, and their sturdy construction, which is expected to prevent rapid deterioration.

They have been used in waters off other states, but Tuesday's event evidently will mark the first time the cars have been immersed in Maryland waters off Ocean City, although other materials have apparently been used to build reefs in that area for years.

In addition, the reef initiative said the subway car project is expected to become the first that the coalition is carrying out along Maryland's ocean coast, as opposed to the bay.

A Delaware natural resources official has been quoted as describing the subway cars as "luxury condominiums for fish." They generally have been transported by barges, with a single barge holding about 40 subway cars.

The Maryland Reef Initiative announcement said that when completed, the site is expected to have as many as 600 cars and will provide an outstanding habitat for fish and other denizens of the marine environment.

According to published accounts, the submerged subway cars have been popular with fish in Atlantic waters.

Sea bass, sharks and a profusion of lobsters figure prominently in the roster of subway car reef residents in the New Jersey area, according to news accounts.

Of the old subway cars, diver Steve Nagiewicz told the Record newspaper that "fish moved in the day they went down."

Tuna and mackerel have apparently been lured from the open ocean by the submerged symbols of life in the big city.

According to one news account, different aquatic species have found different parts of the artificial reefs particularly attractive.

Sea bass, according to a news account of Delaware's experience, have demonstrated an affinity for the interiors of the cars, and flat fish have flopped atop the conveyances, in the silt that accumulated there.

According to the announcement about the use of the subway cars, such underwater habitats as oyster reefs and grass beds are critical for the support of the variety of fish once found in profusion off the coast. Such habitat has receded, however, and is now "sadly a mere shadow" of its former scope, the announcement said.

According to Web site of Maryland's Coastal Conservation Association, which supports the creation of the artificial reefs, the use of the Wilson Bridge debris has been rewarding.

Marine communities of mussels, algae, barnacles and oysters "have already begun to grow on the slabs," the site said.

It said captains of charter fishing boats and sport fishermen began to report catches of striped bass and blue fish within weeks after the debris was dumped in the water.