ABSTRACT
The feasibility of using solid blocks of non-toxic waste material from coal-fired power plants for underwater construction is being tested, including building artificial fishing reefs. On September 12, 1980, a 500-ton demonstration reef, consisting of 15,000 solid blocks of fixated mixtures of fly ash with flue-gas desulfurization (FGD) scrubber sludge from two modern coal-burning power stations, was constructed in the Atlantic Ocean off Long Island, NY, at 20 m. Biological settlement and epifaunal colonization of coal waste block surfaces were already well established and fishes were resident after less than a year. After two years fishes were inhabiting the reef at population densities as high as those on a long-established fishing reef nearby, and populations of crabs and lobsters had immigrated. Laboratory and sea experiments over 5 years suggest that fixated, solid blocks of coal waste may be environmentally acceptable in the ocean and may provide suitable settlement substrates for communities of invertebrates and fish typical of artificial reefs in the region.
