A few years ago, Mike Zacchea took his boat out to a spot about 20 miles off the coast of Delaware to go fishing. It was a good day; he caught several blackfish. But Zacchea knew something that most anglers don’t. He was anchored above an artificial reef made from old subway cars. More than 1,200 that once transported people under the streets of New York City now host all kinds of marine life in the waters of the Atlantic.

The reefs were Zacchea’s brainchild. In 2001, as head of asset recovery for New York City Transit, he saved more than $22 million in disposal and scrap fees by sinking the cars. Now, six years later, another 1,600 passenger and work-crew cars are headed for the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. In September, the Metropolitan Transit Authority approved a $6.3 million contract with a marine-services company that will, within three years, begin the process of transforming the 17-ton subway cars into artificial reefs off the coasts of Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, South Carolina, and Georgia.

Once again, a wrinkle has caused a stir in the environmental community. Zacchea found that he could save more than $27 million this time if he didn’t remove the asbestos that is layered between the walls of the cars, and that’s gotten the attention of environmental groups and even the state of New Jersey. “The amount of asbestos in the subway cars could affect the marine environment,” says Kari Martin, policy communications director for Clean Ocean Action, a New Jersey-based environmental group. “Some studies show that asbestos in freshwater can pose harm to marine life.” Because of growing concerns about the asbestos, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, or NJDEP, includes on its website an entire question-and-answer section dedicated to the issue. “In the unlikely case that fibers are released, concentrations would be expected to be low and below levels causing potential harm to aquatic animals,” the department writes. “The release of high concentrations of asbestos fibers into the water column … is not expected.”

For clean water groups, though, asbestos is just one of a long line of problems with the concept of the ocean as junk yard. For years, companies have been cutting disposal costs by re-purposing old boats, ships, and derelict concrete as artificial reefs, says Lee Harris, an associate professor at the Florida Institute of Technology who often consults with these companies. Florida has been a popular destination for these dumpings, but it’s also “learned some things the hard way over the years,” he says. “You have to be careful that you have clean junk. One of the major costs of sinking a ship offshore is the environmental cleanup required to remove anything hazardous or toxic.” Like asbestos.

Although MTA and state officials say the asbestos in the subway cars is harmless when sunk to the bottom of the ocean, there are other potential problems. For example, you can’t count on the junk staying where it is put, Harris says. Old tires deployed off the coast of Ft. Lauderdale in the 1970s became a nuisance when the straps that held the tires together corroded and sent the tires floating off into the vast blue yonder. There are similar concerns that the subway cars might break apart in the Atlantic. Harris cites the example of a Boeing 727 that was sunk off the coast of Florida and came apart in a hurricane. “The landing gear and base of the 727 are still there some twenty years later, but most of the aluminum light-weight material is gone.”

Zacchea counters that the cars are expected to remain intact at least 30 years. Eventually, they will begin to oxidize but will simply collapse in on themselves. As for the asbestos: “Perception is the biggest issue,” he says. “The asbestos itself is hardbound, and not in a friable condition. When it’s submerged underwater, there’s no vector for it to become airborne and become a threat to human and marine life.”

So Zacchea took his catch of blackfish from the waters above the first subway-car reef and cooked them up. And so far, there have been no reports of serious declines in the fish populations or the safety of the catches taken from those waters, he says. But is six years enough time to study the long-term impact, Martin asks. When the first 1,200 hundred subway cars were sunk, the NJDEP formed a committee to monitor them. That committee, however, eventually became defunct, without reporting any of its findings. And although New Jersey did suspend the artificial reef program while more studies were done, it has suddenly reinstated the program again. “We don’t even have answers to these questions in [the first round of cars],” Martin says.

Aside from saving money on disposal costs, Zacchea says that the reefs have the added benefit of enhancing recreational fishing, boating and diving. Divers, for example, can get navigational and nautical charts published by the various states to search out and swim to the cars. “Everything we’ve heard from the monitoring agencies and state departments of conservation is that the subway cars are retaining their shape and are attracting fish,” he says.

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