Palm Beach Coral Reef Sustains Catastrophic Damage

November 18, 2008 2:24 p.m. EST

Palm Beach, FL (AHN) - Sometime between Oct. 26 and Nov. 4 a tugboat dragging a cable tore through sponges and coral on The Breakers Reef off Palm Beach, Florida causing terrible damage.

"This is the worst I've ever seen from a single event," Steve Spring, project manager for Reef Rescue, told AHN during a telephone interview Tuesday afternoon.

He added that it was illegal for tugboats to travel over the reef, but that they do.

The tugboat cable damaged a swath of reef about 100 yards long and 20 to 30 yards wide, scraping off the surface. Some coral and sponges had their top cut off, others were cut in the middle and still others were cut all the way down, Spring said. He added that some coral heads have been flipped upside down and "are being tossed back and forth in the surge."

"It's pretty bad, it's going to take a long time to heal," Spring said.

Asked if the damage can be repaired, Spring told AHN that not much could be done about the sponges but that some of the coral may be cemented back into place. Spring added that the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission protects the reef and that it would access the damage and hopefully work with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection to repair and protect the reef.

Although it is illegal to damage the coral, no one is enforcing that because there is no law enforcement patrolling the area. And the area has become more crowded with commercial boats anchoring in the area.

Despite being able to narrow down the time period in which the damage was done, no one knows which tugboat was responsible for the damage, Spring said, adding that he wished they did.

Springs said there was an effort underway with many, "trying to make the reefs not fair game" for damage by tugboat cables and other hazards.

But it really isn't fair game because legally, they aren't supposed to go over a reef, they are supposed to be farther out. However, tugboats sometimes come closer in to save on gasoline. The cables on tugboats dangle at least 20 feet below the boat, they are long, heavy cables and they drag along below the tugboat, Spring said.

That dragging cable from an unknown tugboat caused an incredible amount of damage to the reef.

Recreational scuba divers frequenting the reef discovered the damage.