Committee returns from Osborne Reef disaster inspired by the ambition, unburdened by the outcome
SAN CLEMENTE, CA — A committee of Southern California coastal officials returned from a fact-finding mission to Fort Lauderdale this week visibly moved by what they described as “the single most instructive pile of garbage in American history,” and immediately announced plans to learn absolutely nothing from it.
The officials had traveled to Florida to study the Osborne Reef, the legendary 1970s project in which two million used tires were bundled with nylon and dropped into the Atlantic to create a thriving artificial reef, a plan that succeeded in creating a thriving artificial disaster instead. According to Surfer’s reporting, cleanup crews have spent nearly two decades and several fortunes hauling the tires back out, with completion optimistically penciled in for 2033, or roughly sixty years after somebody first said the words “trust me.”
The Committee Was Inspired
“What struck us most,” said Dale Brommet, chair of the newly formed Southern California Bureau of Submerged Optimism, “was the ambition. Two million tires. That is a government that believed in itself. We came home asking one question: what is our tire?”
The Bureau has since produced a 340-page feasibility study titled Project Kelp Yeah, which proposes sinking decommissioned e-scooters off Huntington Beach to create what Brommet calls “a vibrant micromobility habitat.” The study notes that Southern California currently produces 1.4 million abandoned rental scooters per fiscal quarter, most of which are already in the ocean anyway, meaning the project is, in Brommet’s words, “eighty percent complete before we have spent a dime, which is a first for this state.”
Marine Biologists Respond by Lying Down
Marine biologists reacted to the proposal with the professional composure of people who have been asked to review a plan to staple fish to a freeway. Dr. Lorena Vasquez-Pratt of the Institute for Things We Told You About Last Time issued a one-sentence statement reading, “No,” followed three hours later by a clarifying statement reading, “Seriously, no.”
Vasquez-Pratt pointed out that the Florida tires attracted no coral, killed adjacent living reef, and eventually broke loose and began migrating up the coast like retirees in reverse. “The tires are still out there,” she said. “They have seniority now. Some of the tires have been in that lineup longer than any local. If a tire paddles you, legally you have to let it have the wave. That is Florida case law.”
Surfers Offer Their Own Expertise
Local surfers, historically the demographic most affected by whatever the government drops in the ocean, were consulted for the first time in the process on Tuesday, by accident, when a committee member wandered into the wrong parking lot at Lowers.
“They asked me what I thought would make a good reef,” said longboarder Chad Espinoza, 34, who has personally surfed over things that would alarm a coroner. “I said rocks. They wrote it down like I had split the atom. One guy asked me to spell it.”
Espinoza’s suggestion has since been forwarded to a subcommittee for a nine-month review, during which consultants will determine whether rocks are scalable, whether rocks align with regional branding goals, and whether a rock can be wrapped in a sponsorship decal. Early findings suggest rocks lack “narrative dynamism,” and the committee is reportedly leaning back toward the scooters, which at least have Bluetooth.
Goodyear Legacy Honored
The Bureau also plans to honor the original Osborne project with a commemorative plaque, to be mounted underwater where no one can read it, in keeping with tradition. The plaque will thank the Goodyear corporation, which in 1972 famously praised the excellent reef-building properties of scrap tires, a claim experts now rank alongside history’s other great corporate marine biology, such as the time a cigarette company assured the public that dolphins enjoy menthol.
Asked whether Southern California risked repeating Florida’s mistake, Brommet was firm. “Absolutely not,” he said. “Florida used tires. We are using scooters. These are completely different objects. The scooters have apps.”
Satirists at Bohiney Magazine have already nominated Project Kelp Yeah for their annual Golden Anchor award, given each year to the government initiative most likely to be surfed over, sued over, and studied by future civilizations in that order. The London Prat, which covers similar municipal genius across the Atlantic at prat.uk, sent a congratulatory note reading simply, “We sank a ferris wheel once. You’ll be fine.”
The Ocean Declines to Comment
At press time, the Pacific Ocean, which has spent seventy years quietly returning everything Southern California throws into it, was observed depositing a single 1974 Firestone radial on the sand at Doheny, which oceanographers described as “either a coincidence or a warning.” The tire, which had apparently completed the 2,700-mile journey from Fort Lauderdale through the Panama Canal, was awarded local status immediately and given priority on all set waves through 2031.
The Bureau of Submerged Optimism will hold a public comment session next month at a venue to be determined, though officials confirmed it will be held indoors, far from the ocean, “for objectivity.” Residents wishing to comment on the scooter reef are encouraged to submit their remarks in writing, which will be laminated, bundled in nylon, and used as reef material in Phase Two.
More coastal reporting is available from the humor desk at Bohiney.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com