Three Artificial reefs proposed for Narragansett Bay

[goosefish]

If all permitting goes smoothly and public comments are sorted out, they are going to go on the Portsmouth shore, NW side. Two are going to go there and one just inside Mount Hope Bay. Each reef is going to be a quarter acre in size and be set in 30 to 50 feet of water. They're going to be composed of cement modules that are supposed to imitate a Rhode Island boulder field. Each reef will have about 400 of these modules, which are the size of a boulder, 1 meter high by 1.5 meters at the base.

The purpose of the reefs are to see if they increase juvenile recruitment of blackfish, sea bass, scup. They are not intended to be fishing spots. Though fishing inside them, even anchoring inside them, will be allowed--and as you can guess once guys find them they are going to get fished pretty hard. No fixed gear allowed--conch or lobster. No trawling.

It's a DEM project. They got a federal sportfish recruitment grant to do this.

I know exactly where the reefs are proposed to be, but I cant say. No sport burning from me anymore. I got hung out to dry already today doing this.

I wrote a quick article on this for the Providence Business News. I think it may come out tomorrow. I'll post the article here if any of you want to become involved. It's still open for public comment.