1) The Charles H. Kirbo Memorial Reef, sponsored by the Kirbo Charitable
Trust, was deployed on June 4th and 5th in St. Augustine and Jacksonville.
Over 500 Reef Balls were deployed with another 200+ units left with the
High School Program in St. Augustine for continued deployments in the
2000-2001 school year as part of the on-going aspects of this project.
Numerous articles and TV segments were associated with the deployments and
will be available on the web sites soon. World record free diver, Tanya
Streeter was on hand to give the high school students associated with the
project a motivational speech entitled, "Redefining Your Limits." The
Reef Ball Family of companies wishes to publicly thank the Kirbo
Charitable Trust and Kathy Kirbo personally for all the hard work and
funding associated with achieving this truly monumental deployment of Reef
Balls.
The Charles H. Kirbo Memorial Reef is now the largest designed artificial
reef memorial in the world!
It is estimated that this reef will create 120 million pounds of ocean
life over the expected life span of the reef (500 years) of which over
half will be fish!
2) The FL Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission sent in a request to the
Army Corp of Engineers for a variance to allow the use of tires that are
not embedded in concrete to be used in an artificial reef off Pensacola.
Worldwide scientists, fish managers, and artificial reef professionals
have recognized the dangers associated with non-concrete embedded tires
moving during storm events damaging natural reefs, littering beaches and
even endangering human lives. We hope that all concerned parties will
voice their concerns about the use of non-embedded tires as artificial
reefs.
We applaud both the Atlantic States and Gulf States Marine Fishery
Commissions for producing a position paper for the Army Corp against
adopting such a variance.
3) There were articles about Reef Balls in Florida Today, June 5, 2000,
"High School Class Builds Reef" (about a Reef Ball project in the Florida
Keys), and June 2000 Southwest Florida Fishing News, Page 10 "Reef Ball
Models"
4) Reef Ball staff will be traveling to the Caribbean Island of Curacao
and St-Barth's this month for Reef Ball projects.
5) A Reef Ball project is being started in the Barbados.
6) The Reef Ball Coalition is looking for 4 students to fill up the second
session of the Turks and Caicos educational trip for High School students.
July 18th--31st. Call for information. 1-800-831-5731.
7) MARILIM, a Reef Ball Authorized Contractor, will attend EURODIVING in
Munich in September and will have a display booth with information on Reef
Balls.
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