May 2, 2011, 9:30 GMT
Sydney - Recently a pod of dolphins joined thousands of Australians gathered at an east coast beach to watch an old warship sink 30 metres to the seabed to begin its new life as a scuba diving attraction.
Scuttling the HMAS Adelaide off Avoca Beach, 100 kilometres north of Sydney, was welcomed by almost everyone. The alternative - and an expensive one at that - was to cut the old ship up for its scrap metal.
Why not do the same with the hundreds of deep-sea oil rigs that are retired each year?
University of Technology Sydney (UTS) marine scientists argue that leaving the rigs where they are rather than cutting them up for scrap would help replenish fish stocks as well as save the oil and gas industry millions of dollars in decommissioning costs.
UTS researcher Peter Macreadie told national broadcaster ABC that the more than 6,000 rigs in operation will one day need decommissioning.
'They've reached the end of their production life, there's no more oil left and the question is 'What do we do with these structures?'' he said.
'Current legislation requires rigs to be dismantled and removed and recycled onshore if they can be recycled, but we're actually starting to think maybe there's a much better use for those rigs and in some cases there actually isn't the technology to remove these rigs.'
Like the superannuated frigate HMAS Adelaide, the old rigs could become artificial reefs. Fish do not differentiate between artificial reefs and real ones. Artificial structures complement the natural formations that provide a habitat.
Macreadie's thesis is to be published in the US journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment.
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