Retired Redbirds Sleep With The Fishes

Fifty old Redbirds pulled into their final stop last week with a splash. Instead of Flushing or 42nd Street, the rattling 40-year-old relics were destined for the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. There, the hollowed-out subway cars will become artificial reefs, which will be home to hundreds of different species of fish and invertebrates. Its part of a program that began in 2001, when MTA NYC Transit offered 1,300 subway cars for use in various conservationist programs.
This latest batch of cars, which were sunk off the Cape May, New Jersey coastline, are the first 50 of the final group of cars being reefed.The initiative began when the MTA decided to replace many of the old Redbirds, which were introduced in 1962 for the 1964 Worlds Fair, and found themselves with around 70 million pounds of scrap metal on their hands. Recycling only part of each car (and sending the rest to a watery grave) saved the MTA   millions of dollars, and gave aquatic animals a new place to hang their hats. Participants in the program have included Delaware, South Carolina and Georgia.
Sinking artificial reefs is not a new idea. Since the early 1800s, Atlantic coast residents have dumped rubble, old ships and concrete off shore to attract marine life to what is otherwise called a submarine desert by scientists. The practice may have begun when people recognized that there were more fish to be caught at the site of a shipwreck. Over the years, artificial reefs have been constructed with old refrigerators, tires, tanks and automobiles. Once curious ocean-dwellers move into the Redbirds, it will mean more fish in the sea, and that stimulates the economy by attracting recreational fishing and diving.
"This has proven to be a phenomenal program with great benefit to every area we have deployed these obsolete subway cars," said MTA New York City Transit president Lawrence G. Reuter. "From early on weve heard that new sea life is being attracted to areas where the cars have been placed along the sea bottom. Fish bring fishermen and fishermen bring economic benefit."
The problem is the longevity of the materials. An automobile will last only three or four years under the waves and is thus ineffectual. Researchers predict that the Redbirds will last 20 years, which may or may not be long enough for new communities of mussels, mollusks, grasses and worms to affect the ecosystem. Because they do not mimic the natural environment, and may be relatively short-lived, dumping old subway cars into the ocean makes the boundary between reef building and cheaply dumping scrap metal a little less clear.   
It is also unclear what effect the decomposing Redbirds will have on the oceanic ecosystem. While the cars are stripped of doors, windows, hand-holds, number boards, air gauges and route signs, and are steam cleaned and inspected, they are also insulated with asbestos. Since it wont be airborne, the asbestos is less dangerous but the long-term effects of asbestos on the coastal environments are unknown. The form of asbestos used in the cars is not the same as the powdery ceiling tiles that caused lesions in the lungs of humans, so it may not degrade at any noticeable rate.
Eventually, about 200 more Redbirds will become denizens of the deep, placed on New Jerseys artificial reef network from the Shark River Reef to the Cape May Reef, which is 134 nautical miles away from their former home, NYC Transits 207th Street Maintenance Facility. While busy Queens commuters might not notice any difference on their morning and evening trips on the International Express, somewhere along the coast of the Atlantic, our beloved Redbirds are taking on a new kind of passenger: straphanging shrimp and commuting coral.
Christa Weber can be reached at christaw@queenscourier.com.