The Department of Environment (DoE) and Vulcan Inc. on April 1st announced that over 1,592 hard and soft corals, together with sponges, have been restored in the West Bay Replenishment Zone and the remediation project has been completed.
On January 14th a part of the reef in Cayman Islands was damaged, when Paul Allen's 92,38m yacht Tatoosh dropped anchor. According to an article in Cayman Compass, the damaged area covered 13,000 square feet of reef, equivalent to an Olympic-size swimming pool.
Last Friday the DoE and Vulcan Inc, which represents US billionaire and ocean conservationist Mr. Allen, issued a statement announcing the completion of the “jointly administered emergency restoration plan to help speed recovery of injured coral in the West Bay Replenishment Zone.”
Members of the Polaris Applied Sciences team, contracted by Vulcan to implement the plan, spent 300 hours over the course of 24 days working to rebuild and restabilize the impacted area.
According to the release, the work was completed on 28 March under the oversight of Dr. Harold Hudson, who formerly worked for the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Dr. Hudson is a world leader in restoration of coral habitats.
More than 30 tons of cement and sand, along with eight tons of rubble, were used to rebuild and restabilize the impacted area
the release added.
While recreating the lost reef structure, the team tried to reduce any unnatural appearance of scraping or scarring.
The release stated:
Both the DoE and Vulcan have worked hard to ensure that the implementation of the plan reflects the best international standards for restoration of coral habitats and are pleased by the completion of the work and the joint partnership that made it possible