New Study Seeks To Measure RGV Reef’s Effectiveness By R. Daniel Cavazos |
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Friends of RGV Reef announced at a May 9 event that it will help conduct new research
regarding the effectiveness of its reef offshore from the SPI jetties. (Island Matters) |
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It was 2015 when Gary Glick and some of his friends and family at South Padre Island were lamenting a declining resource and loss of one of the great pleasures of their childhood.
“A little group of us were wondering about what happened to the fish of our youth,” Glick recalled. “We’re not going to have anyone who cares about our oceans unless we have kids catching fish.”
Despair would lead to action. A group of like-minded Island residents led by Glick bounded together to form Friends of Rio Grande Valley Reef. It’s a non-profit organization dedicated to building and restoring fish habitat and combatting marine life decline. Working with the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, other local and county governments, and seeking financial and materials donations, RGV Reef would establish a 1650-acre artificial reef.
The reef is located 13 nautical miles northeast of the SPI jetties in the Gulf of Mexico. It is permitted by the Texas Parks and is the largest artificial reef in the state. There are now 72 million pounds of concrete in the reef and it is showing to be a valuable habitat in providing shelter, cover, and food for fish of the Gulf. By all accounts, the RGV Reef is proving to be a significant success, growing the volume of fish and putting carbon back into the sediments instead of it being released into the atmosphere.
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New research will be conducted to determine how effective the RGV Reef is in capturing and storing carbon. (Courtesy of RGV Reef) |
| “We have a lot of fish that weren’t there to begin with,” said Dr. Richard Kline, a professor of marine sciences at UTRGV. “We surveyed this area before the reef’s inception, and there were almost no fish in that 2.5-square-mile area. Now there’s hundreds of thousands, or more.” |
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Measuring Success
Just how many more and how well the reef is working in removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and holding it in the structure is to be examined in a new study announced on May 9. Thanks to a $250,000 grant from Enbridge Inc., research will be underway to more precisely measure the growing fish population associated with the reef and how well it is capturing and storing carbon. “We will count all of the fish in the reef and determine how many are there along with the encrusting organisms,” Kline said at a study announcement event held at the Courtyard by Marriott South Padre Island. “We’ll do a lot of work to estimate the number on the reef and how much carbon biomass we actually have.”
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SPI Largest Donor The RGV Reef is proving to be successful in large part due to the widespread community involvement and support it has received.
In his remarks at the announcement, Glick thanked the Port of Brownsville for providing a staging area for the reef where donated materials are collected. He recognized the Burlington Northern Santa Fe |
| A study will conduct a count of the volume of fish growth associated with the inception of the RGV Reef. (Courtesy of RGV Reef) |
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Railway, a service provider at the port, for donating hundreds of cars of recycled concrete railroad ties that were put into the Gulf waters to build up the artificial reef. Glick also thanked Cameron County Commissioner Sofia Benavides for donations of concrete from county highway projects. |
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The City of South Padre Island has donated over $328,000 to the RGV Reef. At the May 9 event, SPI Council Member Kerry Schwartz provided a welcome to those attending the announcement. Those sorts of material contributions along with the financial donations provided by Enbridge, Glick said, have led to the building of the first of its kind industrial scale reef. “It’s the first certainly in Texas, and biologists tell me it’s the first in the world,” Glick said. “No one has done this before.” |
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Gary Glick, the president of Friends of RGV Reef, delivers remarks at a May 9 event to announce a new study to provide research information about the reef. (Island Matters) |
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Combatting Climate Change
A highlight of the new study to be led by Kline will be taking samples from the reef and marine life and conducting research to determine if artificial reefs are effective in capturing and storing carbon. If so, the RGV Reef will be contributing to efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and helping to diminish the adverse effects of climate change. “It’s suspected that artificial reefs can hold a substantial amount of carbon biomass,” Kline said. “Like detectives, we’ll analyze the data to find out if that’s really the case.”
You can learn more about the reef at rgvreef.org or by phone at 512-923-1904. The organization is active on social media via its Facebook page and can also be reached by email at rgvreef@gmail.com
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Gary Glick, center left, of Friends of RGV Reef, receives a $250,000 contribution from Pete Sheffield, center right, of Enbridge Inc. (Island Matters) |
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