The GreenBrook:

[AndyS]

5 men, 7 hours, 165 tires !!! Maybe this GreenBrook will get cleaned up one of these days.

[Broad Bill]

Andy hope you're recovering nicely from your CABG, I had one myself two years ago. I'm doing well, it took probably six months to feel fully recovered. Everyone's situation is unique.

As far as tires are concerned, are they toxic to the waterway. The reason I ask is I remember years ago the Jamaica and other party boats lined with tires weighted with concrete sailing out the MI to create artificial reefs. Don't think it happens anymore but at one time it was common.

Either way, It's unreal how people can use nature as a dumping ground. Even more than illegally harvesting fish, degrading nature if caught should carry a fine so substantial it would make anyone think twice about doing it again. Disgusting and much thanks for the people who give their time cleaning up others messes.

[AndyS]

You need to read about the the so called "artificial reef" they did i Florida years ago using tens of thousands of used tires. Now they are trying to remove tens of thousands of used tires from the ocean floor because it was such a disaster.

Osborne Reef is an artificial reef off the coast of Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Originally constructed of concrete jacks, it was the subject of an ambitious expansion project utilizing old and discarded tires. The expansion ultimately failed, and the reef has come to be considered an environmental disaster—ultimately doing more harm than good in the coastal Florida waters.

In 2007, after several false starts, cleanup efforts began when the United States military took on the project. This cleanup exercise provided the military with a real-world training environment for their diving and recovery personnel, coupled with the benefit of helping the Florida coast without incurring significant costs to the state. In 2015, a civilian corporation took over, and had removed one third of the tires by November 2019.

[bigfishy]

So what's the scoop? Does the saltwater degrade the tires or the plant life that grows on them? Why such a disaster?

[AndyS]

They found nothing took to the tires, no fish and no plant life.

[bigfishy]

So why was it such an environmental disaster?

[bulletbob]

165 tires??.. thats disgusting... honestly, I will never understand why NJ waterways are considered garbage dumps by so many of the people that live there.. We have citie, here too in upstate NY, heavily populated suburbs etc.. Never see this sort of thing here, not to any extent anyway.. same thing with the roadways, never full of garbage even in heavily populated areas..
Lot here in NY to NOT like but throwing garbage into roadways/streams/grass just is not done here the way it is in my former home.. NJ always seemed to have that problem even when I was a kid in Lyndhurst many decades ago.. streams full of tires, engine blocks, old bikes... Roadways full of trash... The main thing we see around here is a lot of rubber retread casings from big rigs.. lots of those, but they don't end up in the waterways..

[Billfish715]

What section of the Green Brook was this? Second……..there has to have been a source from which all of these tires came. I doubt if the tires were washed downstream to there, and that’s a lot of tires to just be hauled there. Any ideas?

[AndyS]

I think this section is close to Plainfield. Many of these tires are 20 to 30 years old, remember back in 70's people just dumped stuff wherever.