SUSSEX COUNTY, Del. - Old tires have been found washing up on Delaware beaches in recent weeks. According to DNREC, hundreds of tires have been found littering the beaches at the Indian River Inlet, Bethany Beach, South Bethany, and Fenwick Island since the start of December.
“After those huge epic swells we had, I came to Southside just to check the surf and just all the way down the beach here I saw dozens actually hundreds of tires”, recalled Crystal Stokowski, a member of Delaware Surfrider Foundation.
Tires were found littering the beach at the Indian River Inlet in late December. Photo courtesy of Crystal Stokowski.
Stokowski and a friend who was with her went to work called DNREC to report the tires and rolled all the tires up towards the dune to help with easier clean up.
DNREC told CoastTV News that they do expect more tires to wash ashore here along the Delaware coast, especially following larger coastal storms. While DNREC Division of Fish and Wildlife is still investigating where these tires are coming from, they do believe these tires are from old artificial reefs that were placed off of Delaware’s coast in the 1970s, 1980s, and early 1990s.
The use of old tires to create artificial reefs was a popular practice by state agencies, like DNREC, and commercial fishermen in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s up and down the East Coast. In recent years, these old artificial reefs have caused countless issues as they have been found falling apart and then washing ashore.
DNREC is currently in the process of getting updated imagery of Delaware’s reef locations. Once these new SONAR scans of Delaware’s old tire reefs are complete, DNREC will be able to determine if the tires are from these reefs or if they are coming from other reefs outside of Delaware waters.
With more tires expected to wash ashore, DNREC recommends doing exactly as Stokowski and her friend did if you come upon tires. Those recommendations include to roll the tires above the high tide line and place them in a pile before reporting them for clean up.