The Andrew "Red" Harris Foundation Announces 2021 Artificial Reef Project in Jupiter

Jupiter, FL – April 23, 2021 – The Andrew "Red" Harris Foundation is pleased to announce that our 2021 artificial reef project is about to begin with the deployment of the first of five 500 ton barge loads of huge 8' long concrete culverts offshore of the Jupiter inlet!

This year's project benefits from Forterra's donation of 2500 culverts valued at $450,000 to the Andrew "Red" Harris Foundation. The culverts are presently being trucked and staged for loading on barges that will begin deploying a mile off the Jupiter inlet in the first week of May. The map to the right shows how the culverts will be deployed as two huge culvert reefs (chartreuse dots) and as connecting trails (the gray areas) between the huge 500-800 ton limestone boulder reefs the foundation built last summer (green dots).

The culvert reefs will be built with 8 foot long 30" inside diameter pipe and will be broad and undulating. The trails will be built at an intensity of one 8' 18-24" inside diameter culvert per foot, so there will be huge habitat created on the trails as well! The ocean current will quickly interact with the culverts and scour off the thin sand layer that covers the ancient sub bottom ridge of travertine-like bedrock our site is located on top of re-exposing the natural rock between our culverts and limestone boulders. Life will quickly return to the re exposed rock ocean floor and recreate the thriving reef that existed on our site centuries ago.

I'm sure the divers and fisherman among us will note that the map below has the GPS coordinates listed. The manufactured modules we built and deployed in 2016-2018 were vulnerable to boat anchors, but there are no such concerns with boulders and culverts.