Escambia drops 380 tons of broken Bay Fishing Bridge into the Gulf as artificial reef

The bridge that Hurricane Sally tore apart in September 2020 has spent the years since waiting for a second life. This week it became fish habitat. Escambia County deployed more than 380 tons of concrete from the old Pensacola Bay Fishing Bridge as a new artificial reef, dropping 46 pieces into the Gulf of Mexico southeast of Pensacola Pass.

The county Marine Resources Division and Engineering Department worked with Russell Marine, LLC on the deployment. A Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission observer was present to document the placement, the standard requirement for permitted reef sites.

Where the concrete went

The new reef sits in Escambia County's Nearshore East Artificial Reef Site at 30 degrees 17.790 minutes north and 087 degrees 13.475 minutes west — five nautical miles southeast of Pensacola Pass. Water depth at the site is 43 feet, and the deployed concrete creates roughly 8 feet of vertical relief above the bottom.

That relief matters. Bottom-relief structures break up flat sand and expose mid-water column space to current and forage, which is what the species the county is targeting prefer.

What the county expects

The press release frames the reef as habitat-building. The complex shapes of broken bridge concrete — pieces with corners, voids and edges rather than smooth planes — give marine life cover at multiple scales, useful for snapper, grouper and triggerfish that the county Marine Resources Division names by species. The Nearshore East site is also identified as an important spawning area for Gulf flounder.

The Pensacola Bay Fishing Bridge has been out of use since Sally tore through Pensacola Bay in September 2020, leaving the structure unsalvageable. The pieces dropped this week represent one batch of the broken concrete that has been waiting for a productive end.

For divers, the new spot is reachable as a day trip from Pensacola Pass, in shallow enough water for recreational depth limits but deep enough to hold fish year-round. A full list and map of Escambia County artificial reefs is available at myescambia.com/artificialreefs.