Jacksonville subcommittee outlines plan to use $120,000 state grant to restart artificial-reef program

The Shoaling and Artificial Reef Subcommittee of Jacksonville discussed steps to deploy an artificial reef after the city received roughly $120,000 in state grant funds and identified staffing, procurement and permitting hurdles the project must clear.

Subcommittee leaders said the grant, provided through the state fish and wildlife program, will fund a near-term deployment and that greater staffing or a contracted coordinator is needed to turn a long list of existing permits into completed reef sites. “We received the funding for this artificial reef … approximately $120,000,” the subcommittee chair said at the meeting.

The discussion focused on three practical needs: choosing a vetted site, securing appropriate materials and arranging logistics to move and place those materials offshore. Reef consultant Joe Kissel (appears in the transcript also as Kistel) told the committee Jacksonville has about 21 active reef permits but has deployed material at only two of those permitted sites in roughly the past 13 to 15 years. “We have about 21 and we’ve had 21 active for quite some time and that sounds great but out of 21 we’ve only deployed at 2 of those in the past 13 to 15 years,” Kissel said.

Kissel described how permits designate large rectangular areas offshore but that each…