What do chunks of an old bridge?

A shrimp boat, a hopper car from a train, railroad ties and sewer culverts all have in common.

They can all be found as artificial reefs in the Gulf of Mexico.

The newest reef just off Bonita Beach is Kimberly's reef, created by the water school at Florida Gulf Coast University.

Most of the 280 official artificial reefs off the coast of Charlotte, Lee and Collier counties were dropped into the water to create habitat to enhance marine life.

The design for Kimberly's reef, which covers 11 acres, has always been a little more intentional.

This was going to be an underwater research platform for FGCU and an underwater classroom for the community.

The Reef project began in 2018 after the Army Corps of Engineers gave FGCU the location and permit to create an underwater reef in the Gulf of Mexico.

We had some ideas based on past reef deployments in Lee County.

We started gathering some cement, concrete pilings and beams that we could use to make these structures.

But then it soon became obvious that these probably wouldn't hold up to wave energy and hurricanes.

Funding and COVID put the project on hold.

Then in 2021, a second permit for the reef was issued, but the parameters had changed.

And what had changed in this permitting was that now these five and a half foot large openings were required in any reefs that were being deployed for sea turtles to be able to swim through them.

So it had to be something that was pretty substantial.

And so that's when we started pursuing culverts and trying to find a supplier of culverts because, you know, they're giant cement boxes, basically.

And so they'll be able to hold up to wave action and hopefully they won't move around at 20,000 pounds.

I Googled infrastructure one day and Oldcastle infrastructure.

Their parent company came up and, just looking at this was awesome with the types of projects that they have just created all over the world.

It just happened that Cape Coral came up as the first precast company that they had in the state.

Oldcastle is a company that's been around since the early seventies.

We build infrastructure meaning underground municipal facilities.

We the bridge sections, we do grease traps, sewer manholes, all that type of product.

They had worked on a project in Miami.

There were these 19 amazing culverts right there on their facilities.

Left over from another project.

The 19 four-sided box culverts were slated for destruction.

Instead, Oldcastle donated them for the reef.

Typically, they would be broken, taken to a crushing operation and made back in the road base.

You know, nothing's ever wasted.

At least this is something you can see, something you can touch, something for the future.

Suddenly we had a whole new a whole new vision.

We had a whole new expectation of what these 11 acres on bottom of the Gulf could look like.

The cement culverts were ideal for a long-term marine habitat like Kimberly's reef.

The ten by seven rectangular structures have a five foot opening and weigh 20,000 pounds.

So what does it take to create these durable culverts?

At Oldcastle, it starts with rebar.

Rebar is one of the biggest pieces of the puzzle we use.

It comes in in 40 foot lengths on semi-trucks.

All right.

He's going to set up what we call the twin master.

So he has predetermined sizes we can use.

The rebar comes in over there, rollers, yellow cages.

It comes in there, it comes right out the front.

And the computer program bends it.

We set all the measurements, whether it's left, left, left, left or right, whatever it may be, cuts it straight, breaks it and drops it the ground.

Once the rebar comes from the fab area, straight, the bends, it's then brought to the side of the shop.

It's assembled in what we call the cage.

He has a drawing of where that rebar is supposed to be, and the machine there ties it tight, where it has to be, where it can't move.

Inside here is what we call the core that holds the cement inside it.

And outside here is the jacket.

So that holds its shape.

And once it carries, won't take it out.

So all this, you don't see any of it.

It's all hidden.

These forms are opened up.

The cage is dropped in once it's all tight and our quality control signs off on it that it's good to go.

Then we order the concrete and fill up the form, the ready mix.

Concrete is made in the back there at our batch plant.

Once it's ready to go, it is brought up here via truck and poured out into the batch buckets to be poured into concrete molds.

Every day here we pour about 120 yards of concrete, which is 12 of these truckloads come every day.

The various pads Our detail area.

This is where everything's patched.

Any imperfections, he'll come help patch it this way it goes out to the customer.

looking nice and smooth.

The reef team now had the necessary permits, the design and the box culverts.

The next step was getting the culverts into the Gulf of Mexico.

The plan was to deploy them in the fall of 2022.

Nature had other plans.