Ocean Conservation: reading informational text; The Underwater Sea Train 6

The Underwater Sea Train

1. If you put on a scuba suit and dive into the Atlantic Ocean, you may see schools of fish crowding into subway cars. Has New York added new underwater subway stops? Well, no. Not yet, anyway.
2. What you are seeing is an innovative idea in action. This idea is called the “Sea Train,” and it’s a new experiment that’s helping millions of sea creatures by providing a much needed underwater ecosystem.
3. Typically, marine life feeds on natural coral reefs—large underwater structures. Coral reefs are made from sea animals called coral. Coral are simple sea animals that attach themselves to rocks or the ocean floor. They have a large mouth on top with tentacles that they use to catch food. Coral create hardened structures around themselves for protection. Large colonies of these structures form beautiful coral reefs. Unfortunately, pollution and rising water temperatures have caused many coral reefs to die. When the reefs die, sea animals that depend on them also die.
4. The New York Sea Train was put into place to help offset dying coral reefs. From 2001 to 2010, over 2,500 old train cars were dumped into the ocean to make this ingenious underwater habitat. Although putting debris into the ocean is usually bad, these cars were first stripped of seats, signs, and other things that could contaminate the water.
5. These train cars were no longer in use, and so reusing them as coral reefs saved millions of dollars in disposal costs had the cars been destroyed. The cleaned out cars were taken by barge far out into the Atlantic Ocean. There, they were thrown overboard and left to land on the ocean floor. Over the course of several years, coral attached itself to the cars and began growing a new reef.
6. Today, the artificial reef is thriving like New York’s Times Square at rush hour. Barnacles, mussels, and other sea animals coat the walls, ceilings, and floors—advertising abundant diversity. Seagrasses and other plants wave like impatient conductors. Flounder, tuna, sea bass, and sea turtles swim in and out, and circle around the poles.
7. Other countries around the world have followed this idea of using artificial reefs to provide aquatic sanctuaries. They’ve repurposed many of their old battle vehicles. Twenty-five unused armored army tanks were dumped into the Gulf of Thailand. A navy warship was scuttled off the New Zealand coast. For struggling sea life populations, massive pieces of unused debris have made quite a splash!

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