What was once thousands of tons of concrete for the Woodrow Wilson Bridge in now becoming a growing habitat for fish in the Chesapeake Bay.
“There has never been an opportunity like this. You don?t tear down a bridge of that size and magnitude everyday,” said Martin Gary, a fisheries ecologist with the state Department of Natural Resources.
A third artificial reef is being created from the concrete remnants of the former bridge over the Potomac River. Thousands of tons will be dropped Thursday near Solomons Island for the Cedar Point Fish Haven.
Two other reefs have been created from the bridge at Point No Point in St. Mary?s County, which has about 20,000 tons of concrete, and Tangier Sound in Somerset County, which has close to 3,000 tons.
All three “are still a work in progress,” Gary said, as tiny organisms and grasses slowly grow on the submerged concrete, which is stripped of the asphalt.
Twenty artificial reef sites lurk in the depths of the Bay, but the materials for the reefs usually come in smaller loads, Gary said. With the destruction of the bridge, state officials and environmentalists saw an opportunity.
The Bay is already benefiting from the growth on the other bridge reefs, said Tom Kemp, of the Maryland Sportfisherman?s Association.
“We like to see little fish, because then we see bigger fish,” Kemp said.
However, the catch is the costs.
The Wilson bridge sits 110 miles from the closest reef site, and hauling one ton of concrete to the site costs about $40. A barge load carries more than 1,000 tons, and the Bay could get between 70,000 and 85,000 tons from the bridge, Gary said.
Contractors would only have to pay about $10 a ton for the concrete to be ground up and used as a fill material, he said.
The tackle the costs, the Maryland Artificial Reef Initiative launched earlier this year, anchored by the nonprofit Coastal Conservation Association of Maryland.
The group is hoping to raise more funds, since not all of the bridge has been disposed of, said Brooke MacDonald, assistant director of the Coastal Conservation Association.
