Mussel Man Fights Hunger : But Prototype Tire Reef for Shellfish Off Balboa Is Meeting Resistance

At least twice a week, Rodolphe Streichenberger visits his own private ranch.

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It is a fertile area, replete with plants and animals. It is also 40 feet underwater. And the most distinctive characteristic of the small plot just outside Balboa Peninsula is the presence of 1,500 used tires half-buried in sand.

“This was a real desert,” said Streichenberger, 65, a transplanted Frenchman and seasoned scuba diver. Now, he said, the ranch is home to a prototype of a new method to produce enough food for a hungry world.

Welcome to the wilderness laboratory of the Marine Forests Society, the nonprofit organization Streichenberger founded in 1986. Its purpose: to demonstrate the feasibility of replenishing the ocean by growing mussels on underwater reefs made out of used tires.

“The plan is to make (reefs) that will produce 20 times more (food) than ranches on land,” the marine forester said. “Instead of land in the mountains, we will have ranches in the sea. We will feed the starving.”

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Some state marine biologists are skeptical about that. Rubber tires, they say, do not make very good habitats for mussels or any other marine animals. And even if Streichenberger can produce the small black shellfish that resemble clams, they contend he will have an uphill battle convincing state health officials that the mussels are fit for human consumption.

But Streichenberger remains undaunted. By building tire reefs, he says, he can kill three environmental birds with one stone: recycle millions of old tires, create a profitable local industry in mussels for export to areas in which they are considered delicacies, and enhance the marine environment for the benefit of commercial and recreational fishing.

One of those goals, in fact, already has received considerable financial backing in the form of a $100,000 grant from a state program designed to encourage new ways of recycling old tires. And Streichenberger says that he is applying for the permits necessary to expand the project to include 30,000 tires to be placed on a 4.5-acre spot of ocean bottom just off the Balboa pier sometime next spring.

Using rubber tires for reefs is not a new idea. In the mid-1970s, the Los Angeles Rod and Reel Club created two such reefs off Bolsa Chica. About the same time the state Department of Fish and Game built one off Hermosa Beach. The Bolsa Chica reefs quickly broke apart during storms and ended up on the beach, according to Dennis Bedford, a marine biologist and head of the fish and game department’s artificial reef program. And while his own department’s reef stayed intact, Bedford said, 18 years later it supports only scant marine life.

“Tires don’t make good reefs,” he said. “We don’t know exactly why. And mussels don’t grow on the bottom, they grow near the top.”

Streichenberger vehemently disagrees on both counts. Although the experimental tires in his underwater laboratory have not yet been “seeded” to produce mussels, he said, he has conducted experiments in which mussels have thrived on the material from rubber tires. And mussel growers he knows in Europe have raised them successfully near the ocean floor, Streichenberger said.

As for keeping the tire reef anchored, Streichenberger said he has devised a technique. First, he strings the tires together with nylon cord to create 100-yard-long ribbons. When the ribbons are ready to be placed, they are pulled out to sea behind a boat, then released so that they sink. The weight of so many tires strung together makes them remain intact on the ocean floor, he said. And when Streichenberger is ready to grow mussels, he strings the tires with coconut line, a rope made of coconut fibers known to attract juvenile mussels, a process he calls “seeding.”

“They definitely like to grab the tires,” he said of the tiny shellfish.

Yet, a trip to Streichenberger’s existing marine forest does not prove that. Indeed, several vertical plastic air-filled pipes--part of a previous experiment--are virtually covered with mussels. But the tire ribbons, which have been in place for about two years, remain relatively bare except for a few starfish and lobsters. He attributes that to the fact that they have not yet been “seeded” for mussels. “So far,” he explains, “we’ve been focusing on making them stable.”

To be sure, there are several other obstacles.

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State health officials say the waters off Newport Beach are probably too close to an offshore sewage plant to be able to produce mussels fit for human consumption. Streichenberger disagrees, and said he’ll prove them wrong.

Fish and game officials have expressed concern about other environmental issues: Will the proposed tire reef displace marine animals already on the bottom? Will the tires release toxins into the water? Will the tire reef eventually break apart and be washed ashore?

Streichenberger answers “no” to all of these questions; adding that they and other issues will be dealt with in an environmental impact report he is preparing for the state.

Further, the California Coastal Commission already is irritated with the marine forester for creating his 1,500-tire experimental forest without proper permission. “We are treating the sinking of the tire ribbons as a coastal permit violation,” said commission spokesman Cy Oggins, adding that the agency is waiting for Streichenberger’s environmental impact report before deciding whether to act.

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In the midst of the controversy, the aging aquanaut retains the passion of a visionary and the fervor of an evangelist.

He regularly visits his underwater zoological laboratory aboard a 22-foot converted harbor patrol boat called the Marine Forest. Accompanied by volunteer divers, Streichenberger dons scuba gear and descends 40 feet to the ocean floor to make observations and tend his tires.

During one recent dive, he paused momentarily to gaze at the submerged tire ribbon covered by a slimy brown fuzz. Then, convinced that nothing was amiss, he proceeded to the next item on the day’s agenda: the collection of fresh mussels from the nearby vertical pipe columns for consumption by those attending a weekend dinner at a friend’s house.

Among the invited guests were two potential donors to his tire ribbon project.

“We want Newport Beach to be the place where all this started,” Streichenberger said later, relaxing aboard the Marine Forest with the bag of mussels in hand. “This could be the start of something big. You can’t beat the productivity of shellfish and you can’t beat the economy of tires.”

Rubber Reef

A marine forester says he’s devised a way to feed a hungry world and reuse rubber tires: creating artificial mussel reefs that will stay put for years.

Settling on Bottom

Tires tied together in 100-yard lengths that eventually settle halfway into the sand.

Starting Colonization

Baby mussels are attracted to coconut line strung through tires

Sources: Marine forester Rudolphe Streichenberger