The towers, out of use and all but abandoned above the water, have become some of Southwest Florida’s finest artificial reefs, attracting sea life and schools of countless fish from their sandy floors to the ocean top, the Daily News reported last month.
With eight of the towers stationed off Naples and Marco Island, fishermen, charter boat captains and divers in the area are asking the Air Force to leave the towers as they are or sink them, to officially turn them into artificial reefs.
The Air Force’s third option would be to haul the towers out of the Gulf.
It’s possible the cheapest and best option would be to drop the towers in place, said Mark Kinkade, spokesman for the Air Force Civil Engineer Center.
“But that will depend on the outcome of the feasibility and environmental studies,” Kinkade said.
Those studies haven’t been funded yet. The Air Combat Command division ultimately will decide what to do with the old towers. But until a budget with money for the environmental studies is passed, it’s anyone’s guess as to when a decision will be made, Kinkade said.
In the meantime, fishermen will continue to enjoy the hot spots for grouper, snapper and just about everything else.
Bill D’Antuono, an avid spearfisherman leading efforts to bring a new artificial reef off Naples, said it would be a travesty if the Air Force removed the towers and the 30 years of coral and life that has been growing around them.
“I can’t see why an environmental review would be an issue,” D’Antuono said. “It’s all steel. If they can sink a ship to turn it into a reef, I don’t see why that would be an issue.”
Trip Auckerman, director of advocacy for Coastal Conservation Association of Florida, said he will be waiting for the Air Force’s budget to come out this summer.
“We’ll see if they’ve got money to reef them and work with our national office to try to do whatever we can do to help with the cost if we have to,” Auckerman said.
Leaving the towers in place might not be an option. It costs the Defense Department several million dollars a year to keep corrosion at bay and to maintain the electrical and solar power systems. Each tower has to flash warning lights and blare an endless foghorn, among other warnings, to keep boaters safely away, Kinkade said.
The first of the towers were installed in 1978, when they were mounted on barges and then sunk and weighted down with rocks.
There is a precedent for turning such towers into reefs, Kinkade said. During installation, a 15th tower fell off a tow barge during a storm off Apalachicola.
“The frame was never recovered and remains as an artificial reef,” he said.
The eight towers off Naples were run by the Homestead/Key West Air Reserve Base as part of a tracking and communication system for air combat training. With better technology, the Air Force is switching to land-based systems, Kinkade said.
©2017 the Naples Daily News (Naples, Fla.) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
