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     Our divers combed the area for trash, cutting and clipping miles of fishing line.  Much of it was caught in the holes in the reef beneath the pier and was difficult to disentangle.  Divers swam their finds to the surface, and volunteers on the pier lowered buckets, which the divers filled and the volunteers hoisted up.

     Nearly three tons of trash...5,904 pounds...was collected by volunteer divers and beach walkers at Anglin's Pier and five additional sites, including North Beach Park in Hollywood, Dania Pier, South Beach Park in Fort Lauderdale, Fisherman's Wharf in Pompano Beach and Deerfield Beach Pier.  Ten charter boats and several private boats took divers to the local reefs to locate even more junk.

Since the  Ocean Watch Foundation began Reef Sweep in 1988, more than 4,300 volunteers have hauled in more than 11 tons of garbage.  In the early days of Reef Sweep, most of the garbage was tossed by careless boaters, divers, and fishermen.

     Today, more boaters are aware of the impact of trash on our reefs and are more considerate.  The items found this year were more likely dropped overboard by accident, and the miles and miles of fishing line found under the pier are impossible for fishermen to retrieve when they get snagged.  Seeing the amount of monofilament snarled beneath the pier made me wonder how anyone actually manages to catch a fish without becoming entangled!

     SFDI members brought back lots of "treasure" from under Anglin's Pier.  Wayne Pantke found a watch, Fred Miller found a bracelet, Joe Smariga found a 20-pound soft weight weightbelt, and Jon Black found a Penn reel that he will use for parts.  Everyone found fishing weights and bucket loads of tangled monofilament.  Cell phones and sunglasses were the catch of the day, and yours truly will admit to having lost a cell phone out of a pocket one day while fishing.  The lesson learned is to keep your phone in a zippered pocket and secure your sunglasses around your neck.

The dive was a real treat for South Florida Divers, who normally would not be permitted to dive beneath a fishing pier.  Snook and a huge Manta Ray delighted our divers, and they had a lot of fun wrestling with Dusky Damselfish to clear tangled monofilament from their nests.

     We were rewarded with a Trash Bash at Harbour Grille that evening.  It was a time to meet up with old friends, enjoy a buffet and beer, and support Ocean Watch.  Several SFDI members won raffle prizes, and your editor won two Silent Auction items. If you missed this year's Reef Sweep, be sure to make next year's!

Click here for more Reef Sweep photos by Julie Taylor!

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     Reef Sweep continues its legacy this year on June 9, 2001. During the past 12 years of Reef Sweep, over 4,000 divers on charter boats and private boats, along with beach volunteers, have removed a staggering 10+ tons of harmful and unsightly debris from our local coral reefs.

     Last year, 160 divers, beach walkers and behind the scenes volunteers helped clean up over 4,632 pounds of trash during the daylong event. Among the trash collected were thousands of cigarette butts, 652 cans and bottles, 81 feet of rope and 3,112 feet of monofilament fishing line.

     During the first Reef Sweep in  1988, divers descended on the reef in hoards and picked up everything in sight: miles of rope and line, anchors and jetsam by the ton, lots of strange things that shouldn't be there, and thousands of old bottles and cans in every size and shape imaginable. They went to the ocean in private and commercial boats. And they brought up lots and lots.

     Then in 1989, Reef Sweep organizers told divers to look inside those bottles and cans to see if there were "squatters" living inside and if so, leave it there. They brought up a little less that year, but they felt it was right.

     In 1990, the Foundation gave out some rules about what was safe and sane to recover from the ocean during Reef Sweep. Toilets could be lift bagged up, but the motorcycle really pushed the limit! Divers brought up less again that year, but was the right stuff and the sane stuff. Every year we gather the trash and laugh about the stuff we found and recap the day at the party.

     In over a dozen years Reef Sweeps have brought literally tons of trash and enough rope and line to reach to the moon up from the ocean floor in Broward County. Though there might be less trash brought back each year, without this annual 'maintenance dive' the quality of life in the ocean would quickly be like living in an underwater landfill again, like it was back in 1988.

     A volunteer appreciation trash bash party will be held following Reef Sweep at Fisherman's Wharf, 222 N. Pompano Beach Blvd., starting at 5 PM with a free hamburger and drink for Reef Sweep volunteers. There will be a trash contest, music, raffles, entertainment and more so be sure not to miss out on all the fun!

     Joe Smariga is running a private boat dive for Reef Sweep, and there are many charter boats available.  Beach divers and walkers can get in the act too!  Sign up at the June 2001 meeting, or click on www.oceanwatch.org for more details.

     Perfect conditions, with an ocean flat as a mirror, and a friendly crew of Ocean Watch  coordinators greeted us. After writing down our names, and being assigned a color for easy recognition of our collected garbage load, the Girl Group RED went on their way into the mysterious unknown dive site underneath Anglin’s Pier. To our big surprise, we were greeted by an abundance of fish life: big schools of barracudas, large jacks hunting schools of smaller fish, and an abundance of assorted reef fish we definitely did not expect on a shallow beach dive.

     After a few minutes of adjusting to the surroundings and finally waking up, Barbara, Frauke and I started our work. We filled buckets and buckets with tangled fishing line, lures, weights, bottles, fishing poles, and a 15 foot PVC pipe. The trash was hoisted up onto the pier by non-diving Ocean Watch volunteers. There was so much more work to be done by the time our pressure gauges indicated that it was time to surface.

     3,359 pounds of harmful debris were collected as part of the 12th annual Reef Sweep and Beach clean up by 300 local volunteers and organizations from as far as Chicago and Orlando.  Among the unusual items collected, were a commercial sump pump, a message in a bottle, a bottle of chemicals used to paralyze fish, a top of a stove, a mattress & pillow, barricades, several shopping carts, a water heater, a toy truck and another empty funeral urn again this year.

     The brave rescue of a 4-foot reef shark by Stephen and Yvonne Attis from a group of fishing youngsters who were dragging it all over the beach was one more example of what Ocean Watch stands for - to care for and protect our back yard the Ocean.

     We celebrated Reef Sweep with the Ocean Watch party at Pompano Pier, where we were treated to free drinks, food, and music, in the company of fun people with a common interest.  We were exhausted from the physical hard work, but had a good feeling that we had made - even though tiny - a positive impact to our fragile ocean environment.  For more information about the Ocean Watch Foundation, call (954) 467-1366 or point your browser to www.oceanwatch.org.

      Some SFDI members attended the Ocean Watch Foundation’s public workshop session on “Marine Protected Areas for Broward County” in Broward County Main Library’s Auditorium on June 21. The room was crowded with passionate and vocal people on both sides of the issue, but the prevailing sentiment was anti-MPA.  I will try to stay impartial and just report on what was said.  For more information on MPA’s, visit www.oceanwatch.org.

     International Game Fish Association President Mike Leach, Dr. Jim Bohnsack from the National Marine Fisheries Service, and Lauderdale-by-the-Sea  Chamber of Commerce President Carl Watson  spoke first, then the floor was open to the highly opinionated attendees.

     Leach said that the IGFA is not opposed to MPA’s, but that blanket no-take zones are a severe form of over-regulation that make criminals out of people who are not in the know.  He said that commercial over fishing would not be regulated, and that MPA’s discriminate against fisherman in favor of divers.

     Bohnsack presented a PowerPoint presentation with the facts and figures of Broward’s increasing population of people and the corresponding decreasing population of mature fish.  Older fish produce more eggs, but our numbers of larger fish are decreasing.  He feels we need to set aside an area in order to support sustainable fishing, and that MPA’s produce bigger fish, more fish, and the return of species seen in the past but not recently.

     Watson commented that the MPA’s are not a conspiracy against recreational fishing and that bag and size limits are not working.  Then the floor was open to attendees, and the electricity in the room was overwhelming.  Here is a brief sampling of comments:

     “There are too many buildings, not enough wetlands, and law enforcement officials are already overwhelmed and can’t keep up with current laws.”  “Beach renourishment is the culprit.”  “There are fish but no habitat.”  “Let the taxpayers decide.”  “If we can’t put 20% aside, we are being selfish.  Our investment in our future will grow.”  “Divers are not benign, they damage the reef with fins, hands, tanks, consoles and cause ‘death by 1,000 cuts.’”  “Put the MPA’s further from the inlets so the family fishermen can get back to port safely in a storm.”  “The fish are dying from freshwater runoff, pollution and water management mistakes.”  “Ocean Watch is not the best organization to administer the MPA’s, they already caused all the fish to leave the buoy areas.”  “Why aren’t there any commercial fisherman on the MPA Committee?”  “Over fishing isn’t from hook and line.”  “If you’re going to keep fishermen out, keep divers out too.”  “It’s the freighters and tankers and sewer outfalls that are causing the problem.”  “MPA’s will cause more damage to adjacent reefs.”  “Look at the habitat before selecting an MPA, don’t just look at a map...protect the existing good habitat.”

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     In the July, 2001 issue of The Wet Zone, your editor reported on one of the three public workshops held by the Ocean Watch Foundation  to discuss proposed MPA’s or “Marine Protected Areas” in Broward County. Several club members attended at least one of the three meetings and witnessed the passion with which people on both sides of the issue discussed their case.

     According to the July 28 Sun-Sentinel, the fishing ban was “tossed back.”  Reporter David Fleshler wrote that the plan's backers are forming a new group to produce a less controversial series of conservation proposals, which they hope could win the support of the fishing groups that had bitterly opposed the proposal to ban fishing.

     The Ocean Watch  Foundation released a statement that read, "Any prior notions of boundaries and activities allowed within the marine protected areas have been discarded and we will start at the drawing board by taking into consideration the comments and concerns of all stakeholders."

     Mike Leech, president of the International Game Fish Association in Dania Beach, is a strong opponent of the plans. "It's a political process, and there are a lot more people concerned about losing their right to fish than there are scientists and environmentalists."

     To take effect, the proposal would require a vote by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. But the commission would not consider it without an endorsement by the Broward County Commission. And county officials have said that their support would require the support of the fishing community, which turned out heavily against it.

     Steve Somerville, the county's director of planning and environmental services, said that the public reaction showed that there wasn't support in the fishing community. "On an issue like this, where there are strong passions on both sides, it's really important to develop a consensus," he said. "Apparently there was a lot of common ground on issues that didn't pertain to the MPA -- water quality, shoreline restoration."

     Bill Roe, vice president of Ocean Watch, said the new plan is to form a group that would include everyone -- commercial fishermen, recreational fishermen, environmentalists, dive tour operators and anyone else interested in improving the health of the waters off Broward County. They could look at water pollution, reef damage from freighters, wetland destruction, habitat conservation and other issues, Roe said.  "It became clear that there were a lot of concerns about the ocean, and that restricting fishing was just one of them," he said. "If we can get people to come to the table and work out suggestions, we're better off than before. The general consensus is anything is better than nothing."

     The new group will be headed by Adriaan Holt, president of the Lighthouse Point Saltwater Sportsmen's Association, and Kim Aniston, former project manager for the Florida Keys office of the Ocean Conservancy.  It is an unusual team. Holt had bitterly opposed the marine protected area plan. Aniston had worked to create the Tortugas Ecological Reserve, a 151-square-mile marine protected area intended to preserve coral reefs 70 miles off Key West.  "We're going to bring folks together," she said. "If you think the problem is pollution, beach renourishment, overfishing -- let's get all the concerns out."

     Holt said fishermen strongly support ocean conservation, but not without sufficient scientific backing. "We're all conscious that we need to conserve," he said. "We do not go out and kill for the sake of killing. We need to conserve for our children. In our club, we release every billfish that we catch." But he said that fishing bans are far too severe a move without scientific evidence.  "I have major problems with site selection without any scientific input," he said.

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     So how do we get a ship in our back yard?  We’ve got to do something. Although U.S. Congress has mandated that the aging ships be disposed of, the method of doing so is still being decided. If you wish to help inaugurate a new era of diving in North America, you've got to make your voice and your opinion heard by writing to your U.S. Senators and Representative.  It’s easy, we’ve already written your letter and we collected about 150 at the August meeting.  If you did not sign your letters at the August meeting, please see Michelle Burzese or Pat Lamicella at the September 2001 meeting.  If you cannot attend the September meeting, log on to  scubadiving.com/feature/shipstoreefs and follow the instructions.  See the web review for more information on the RAND study.  I can’t wait to put our first dive to our very own Navy ship artificial reef on the club calendar!

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     For this survey to be valid and counted by the DMV, registered vehicle owners will need to provide their name, address and vehicle license tag number. All information will be kept confidential.  To participate, visit Mote’s website at www.mote.org/reef-plate-form.phtml  and complete the survey in order to continue Mote Marine Laboratory's application process for the new "Protect Our Reefs" specialty license plate.

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