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Originally Posted by Ocean-Angler
wasnt there a power plant down south they tried that at?
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Actually there have been at least 4 attempts that I know of to build artificial reefs in the Huntington and Newport Beach areas. Some became artificial reefs that semi succeeded but they were not planned and others that had countless hours of data put into their creation failed. Two that were most known to the public are the artificial reef just outside of Newport harbor that actually was doing very well for a couple of years until we had a big el nino storm come through and tear everything up and the experiment was abandoned and the second reef is in Huntington Beach and it is the remnants of the old HB pier. They dumped it after demolition but did not make the location public. After a number of years the location was discovered but it is still only a rock rubble reef that holds certain species of fish at different times of the year but it has never been like a natural reef in other areas and at some times of the year has one species in decent numbers but at other times of the year is barren. The major thing to understand about building an art reef in So Cal is that kelp is a fickle plant the conditions have to be just right for it to become established and flourish. The water clarity has to be good for light penetration, the temp has to be stable, the area needs to have low disturbance from both nature and humans (the horseshoe kelp used to reach the surface and was a kelp bed but with heavy boat traffic it has been reduced to a a bottom covering of kelp) and it needs time to establish a balanced ecosystem in the area.