In October the United States Coast Guard (USCG) Sector Jacksonville deployed several artificial reefs modules offshore northeast Florida at the John C. Leone Memorial Reef site (JCL Reef). Forterra Pipe and Precast provided 11 clean concrete risers and Gate Precast constructed a custom reef site marker for the ocean conservation project. Recently divers were able to visit the JCL reef to verify the placement accuracy and the current condition of the new artificial reef structures. Pictures of the new reef structures in their underwater condition are below.

We were overly excited to find the new reef structures lying pretty much exactly in the position we had planned for. The vessel positioning technology aboard the Maria Bray and the combined skill set of the USCG crew enabled these new structures to be placed very accurately. Regardless, we had to provide the USCG with GPS deployment coordinates, and these coordinates were determined based on our mapping abilities and assumptions where the existing reef structures sat underwater. This was far from an exact determination. In addition, we could not anticipate how the structure would "fly" underwater once deployed. To our delight everything is sitting on the seafloor as we had planned in our deployment mapping.

This project was made possible because of the USCG Sector Jacksonville and the captain and crew of the Maria Bray. Forterra and Gate Precast graciously provided the reef structure materials for this conservation endeavor. We at TISIRI cannot say enough how grateful we are for the support of these organizations. This reef addition is a big contribution to the marine environment and the community of northeast Florida.