Wedged into the sandy ocean floor under U.S. waters sit obsolete military aircraft, old New York subway cars, cracked porcelain toilets, a motorless Rolls-Royce, and even intercontinental ballistic missiles. These objects are no longer considered junk, though. Once immersed in saltwater, they're called "artificial reefs."

By providing hard surfaces on which invertebrates such as barnacles, coral, and sponges can attach themselves, artificial reefs are supposed to create marine ecosystems where previously none existed. But skeptical marine biologists observe that many of these "conservation" projects resemble what is otherwise labeled offshore dumping. "There are no cross-cutting national or regional standards about what materials can be used for artificial reefs," says Kristin Milligan, a scientist with Clean Ocean Action who has researched artificial reef guidelines (or the lack thereof). "You can basically put anything in the ocean and call it a reef as long as it stays there."

The real reason for this dumping craze may have less to do with conserving fish than saving and making money. Sport fishers and divers have actively lobbied for artificial reefs for the fish and tourism dollars they can attract. And, by donating old equipment to the cause, private industries and governments save millions of dollars. It costs about $20,000 a year for the Navy to maintain a decommissioned ship, for example. Sending one to the scrap yard runs about $1.6 million. Disposing of the 1,300 asbestos-lined subway cars that New York City Transit is offering free of charge would have cost an estimated $13 million. Now many of them are headed for the coastal waters of Delaware and South Carolina.

Meanwhile, the actual ecological effects of artificial reefs are virtually unstudied and unknown, and the number of critics is growing. (In October, California governor Gray Davis rejected a "rigs-to-reef" bill allowing oil companies to leave decommissioned rigs in place as piscine homes.) Artificial reefs undoubtedly attract fish, says Mark Hixon, a professor of zoology at Oregon State University, but it has not been proven whether they actually increase fish populations -- or just lure the fish to new areas. "Artificial reefs are not the same as functional natural reef communities," he says. "There is no comparison."
-- Sarah Osterhoudt

The Infigen, Inc. Holsteins are lactating, and if the company has its way, the milk will soon be on supermarket shelves. That business decision may curdle, however: The twenty-one cows owned by the DeForest, Wisconsin-based biotech company are clones, seventeen of them from a single, now-deceased super-lactater. Although products derived from cloned animals (as opposed to genetically engineered ones) are not regulated in the United States, the Food and Drug Administration has asked biotech companies not to sell them. So far Infigen is complying, but in an act of public relations derring-do, the firm's president and chief scientific officer, Michael Bishop, regularly drinks his herd's milk, which he insists is perfectly normal. Tests, funded by Infigen and being performed by Utah State University and the University of Wisconsin, are underway.
-- Jill Davis