WHITTIER, Alaska – Fifty feet down in the cold waters of Smitty’s Cove, a concrete paradise is being built for some of Alaska’s most unusual creatures.
Alaska’s first artificial reef was recently installed near Whittier – one of Alaska’s busiest ports – to provide a haven for small plants and fish, near where barges stacked high with containers bring everything from road graders to toilet paper into the state.
Alaska Marine Lines built the reef to meet a federal requirement that it offset damage done to marine habitat when it expanded its container facility at Whittier last year.
“They covered all the good stuff,” said Mark Schroeder, a wildlife biologist with the federal Minerals Management Service, who helped promote the project.
The project involves two types of reef structures – one built with about 100 concrete pyramids weighing 400 pounds each, and the other with about 100 concrete balls weighing 300 and 400 pounds each, said Brian Lance, a fisheries biologist with the habitat division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, who organized the project.
The reef balls were purchased from a contractor who works with the Reef Ball Foundation in Athens, Ga., a nonprofit group that has helped provide half a million reef balls for 3,600 projects in 56 countries.
The reef balls are hollow so small fish can use them to hide from larger fish. They come with holes that create mini-whirlpools to help mix the water column. They are thick on the bottom and thin at the top so they won’t flip over in stormy seas. A rough exterior encourages algae growth.
The pyramids, built by Artificial Reefs Inc. of Pensacola, Fla., work on the same premise. They are stable, hollow and come with holes to promote marine growth and provide a place for fish and other animals to hide.
The two reef styles were installed side-by-side so researchers can compare how well each works in coastal Alaska waters.
Less than 24 hours after Wednesday’s installation was completed, marine animals were already checking it out, Lance said.
“There were two sunstars … already glommed onto the structure, just checking them out, I’m sure. And there were a couple of copper rockfish swimming among them,” he said Friday. “There already is marine life at least investigating what is going on there.”
Both the balls and the pyramids have been used successfully in waters farther south, but it is uncertain how well they will work off Alaska coasts.
Lance is optimistic.
“Fish and invertebrates will start using it pretty quick,” he said.
Todd Barber, chairman of the Reef Ball Foundation, said reef balls have been used successfully all over the world, including in cold Canadian waters.
“They typically will be filled with fish in two weeks,” he said.
Barber said the fish normally show up to fight over the new structures. Once their territorial disputes are settled, the fish leave, with the winners returning later.
“After a full season of growth, whoever won the fight before takes it over as its new home,” Barber said.
Smitty’s Cove is a gem for divers, said Schroeder, who on installation day carried around a rarely seen heart crab – which has hairy legs and a heart shape – in a water-filled container.
“I’ve only seen one other before,” Schroeder said.
He was eager to introduce the crab to its new digs.
“She will have a new home when we release her today,” he said.
Local diver Jerry Vandergriff, who also pushed for the project, said Smitty’s Cove is a treasure. He’s completed more than 1,200 dives in the cove.
Vandergriff has had sea lions look him in the face. But his favorite creatures are the smaller ones – the bay pipefish so small it can slip through a straw, the stubby squid that turns purple when approached and the spiny lumpsucker, a fish ugly in name only.
“It looked like a little clown. It was bright orange and round – just as cute as it could be,” he said.
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