Rushing to rescue smashed reef
By Jan TenBruggencate
Advertiser Science Writer
Divers will begin repairing damage to coral heads off Barbers Point as early as this afternoon in an emergency effort to save some of the most valuable and oldest corals ripped from the ocean floor this month by the grounding of the bulk carrier Cape Flattery.
ABOVE: Some of those broken heads, which still have live coral, will be grafted back onto the reef. Photos courtesy NOAA Fisheries
Marine biologists said many of the coral heads have been on their sides or upside down for a week or more and may be near death. Some of these corals may be a century old, and some considerably older.
TOP: The bulk carrier Cape Flattery broke off big chunks of the reef when it ran aground there.
"As long as they're not moving, they can last a couple of weeks," said John Naughton, a marine biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's fisheries office in Honolulu. If a swell shows up and they begin rolling around, the abrasion will quickly kill off the living communities that form the surface of the corals, he said.
The 555-foot Cape Flattery apparently careened along the reef before grounding itself about a quarter-mile off Barbers Point on Feb. 2. The ship was pulled from the reef Friday after much of its fuel and cargo was removed.
The investigation continues into why the Cape Flattery grounded, and Coast Guard 14th District public affairs officer Brooksann Anderson said she did not know when the investigation would be complete.
Federal and state divers will swim to the grounding site this morning to begin taking the coordinates of the specific coral heads they want to save. They will use satellite-based mapping equipment to establish the locations.
Damage ranges in depth from 20 feet to more than 70 feet. By this afternoon, Naughton said, they hope to begin testing a repair technique using cement, in shallower waters.
State reef biologist Dave Gulko said the initial work will use a cement mixture that has been tested at ship grounding sites in the Florida Keys. It is a mixture of Portland II cement and plaster, which is thick and hardens quickly.
Bill Goodwin, a marine geologist and coral reef injury expert with the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, said that a crew on a small boat mixes small batches of the cement and puts them in plastic containers — anything from Tupperware to sandwich bags — which are then handed off to the divers. A dive team selects a solid surface and stands the coral head up on it, then uses the cement mixture the way a bricklayer uses mortar.
Naughton said the two most critical species for the emergency repairs are antler coral (Pocillopora eydouxi) and lobe coral (Porites lobata). Some heads are the size of big television sets and some are even larger, he said.
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"Both species are very important habitat for reef fish," said Kevin Foster, a marine ecologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
At the Kewalo Basin park yesterday, NOAA Fisheries Service reef ecologist Steven Kolinski displayed a slab formed by concrete that spilled of the Cape Flattery and, behind that, some broken antler coral.
One of the issues marine biologists worry about is what kind of marine life will invade the reef areas with the worst damage.
"There are several alien species of algae, and we're not sure what might move in first," Naughton said. There have been other damaged reefs where aggressive seaweeds elbowed out normal reef coral communities.
Rusty Brainard, head of NOAA's Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center, recalled diving near a wreck site at Pearl and Hermes Atoll in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.
"Not even knowing the wreck was nearby, it was very obvious that something was different," because instead of a healthy coral and coralline algae bottom, he began seeing abnormal amounts of blue-green algae on the bottom, he said. After he passed the wreck site, the coral reef bottom returned to normal.
Based on the experience of researchers at wreck and grounding sites in the Florida Keys, the restoration and monitoring of the Cape Flattery site is expected to take years, and the process has barely begun.
"Except for the emergency stabilization of coral heads, we're still in the pre-assessment phase," Naughton said.
Reach Jan TenBruggencate at jant@honoluluadvertiser.com or (808) 245-3074.
