Reef Ball Progress

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March 30, 2002
1) Peter Clark of Tampa Bay Watch writes, "Here is a great article in
today's outdoors section of the St. Pete Times minus the photos. Just click
on the address listed below and it should take you to the site. It may
expire after Monday or Tuesday. enjoy,
http://www.sptimes.com/2002/03/29/Outdoors/Step_right_up_to_the_.shtml
(It's at www.artificialreefs.org under news articles if it expires)
150 Reef Balls were deployed by Tampa Bay Watch last weeks to promote oyster
growth in Tampa Bay.
(Picture attached is the Tampa Bay Watch Group)

2) Sea Search of Virginia is applying for a Reef Ball Authorized Contractor
license in Virginia and will also cover parts of the Chesapeak Bay in
Maryland. They have a large boat with a crane and have already deployed
many sets of Reef Balls. Reef Ball looks forward to good mid-Altantic
representation.

3) Reef Ball Staff will be in Malaysia from April 2-14 th. (Langkowi 5-11th,
KL 11th-12th) Reef Ball headquarters will be closed during this time. You
can contact Larry Beggs at Reef Innovations at 941-650-2519 for mold related
issues or Kathy Kirbo at the Reef Ball Foundation 770-752-0202 for other
requests.

4) Mold orders are being processes or pending for P.T. Newmount, Indonesia,
Sea Life of Malaysia, Sea Search of Virginia, Nature Foundation of St.
Maarten, University of Maryland's Natural Resources Program, Maryland
Environmental Service, Captian Douglas Price (Philipines), and others. Get
ready for a busy Reef Ball summer!

5) From Provo in the Turks and Caicos, "First off--the University of Georgia
program was a success and we now have another 10 balls on our reefball Reef.
On another note I'm working with Martin County, Fla. One of their upcoming
projects involves putting together participant programs for a couple "river
reefs". These programs will be worked through Florida Oceanographic Society
and the Martin County Environmental Learning Center. We are now at the
stage of planning where we should be getting the construction phase started
after October 2002.

6) Aquatique's in Baharian is also applying to be a Reef Ball Contractor.
We look forward to more representation in the Arabian Gulf area.

7) Advanced Coastal Technologies sold 600 feet of ProTecTube II (Beach
Erosion Protection) for a condominium, San Suci near Pensacola Florida. You
can find articles about this project at
http://www.advancedcoastaltechnology.com/articles/news.htm The project will
be done by Coastal Reef Builders, Inc., an authorized Reef Ball contractor.

8) Alex Waters reports from Jacksonville that Mandrin High School produced
another 100 Reef Balls this year and will be deploying them this
spring/summer. They have added the Reef Ball coral adapter plugs and
pending a permit they plan to do coral rescue and re-planting programs of
imperiled corals in Jacksonville. Alex said they will be working mostly
with the species Oculina. Alex's program is now spreading to other schools
in Jacksonville!

9) Marenter (our authorized contractor for Mexico) visited two Reef Ball
breakwater projects in the Dominican Republic and monitoring reports they
are both functioning excellently to create and retain the beaches.

10) Staff visit to the Island School in the Bahamas went well. The
exciting, award winning, school has produced 50 or so Reef Balls and
continue production each term. They are conducting a number of experiments
from "halo" treatments on Reef Balls to using Reef Balls as submerged
breakwaters. The school upgraded their molds during our visit to the coral
adapter plugs for next fall's term when they plant to start propogating and
saving imperiled corals.

11) The Reef Ball Foundation was awarded a grant by Manatee County to do
monitoring work on the County's artificial reefs over the next year. 44
monitoring dives will be conducted, 11 in each season, to do photo
documentation of the fouling community and fish counts. A final report will
then be prepared and presented to the county and made public.

12) Reef Ball made the headlines of the Sarasota Herald last Saturday (and
several newspapers around the country) as the A.P. wire picked up the
headline story broken by the Washington Post about Eternal Reefs.

13) Reef Ball's Spanish contractor A.S.O.P made presentations to authorities
in Madrid about Advanced Coastal Technology's products this week.

14) Reef Ball staff will be participating in a 5 day intensive field
exploration of islands near Langkowi, Malaysia during our Malaysia trip to
determine the best ways to use Reef Balls for island wide restoration
projects.

15) A separate team may travel to Orrisa, India to aid a project using Reef
Balls to protect turtle nesting sites from being disturbed by netting
activities.

16) Southern African Underwater Ecology Society is still working to
establish a Reef Ball program in South Africa and hopes to obtain molds
soon.

Sorry for the long email today....there is so much more going on but I just
wanted to give everyone the highlights before we leave town for 15
days....updates will not be happening while we are in Malaysia so we'll
update you next in Mid-April.
Have a great weekend...Todd Barber