Langley Tire Reef Video

This video was produced by Guy Sparkman, for his 8th grade project at Langley Middle School, this past June. Guy did six dives in March to capture the underwater footage. The average water temperature was 44 degrees; there were days when snow and sleet were blowing sideways as he suited up.

The dives were mostly with me, Russell, his father. We were joined on one dive by Todd Graves and Jan Kocian, and Guy’s sister, Maia.

Please pass this video around, via the URL, or embed it into your own blog or diving related website. Let’s use this to help spread the word of a grassroots effort aimed at preserving a shore based dive site in Langley as the Port of South Whidbey moves forward with it’s plans for marina redevelopment.

Please use the Contact Us link, to the right, to add  your name to a database of divers interested in helping with this effort.

Thanks

Russell Sparkman

May 13, Presentation, Port of South Whidbey

This evening, at 7:30, at the Freeland Library, in Freeland, on Whidbey Island, I’ll be giving a presentation to the Port of South Whidbey about Langley becoming a regional/national dive destination.

The existing Langley Tire Reef is slated for removal, due to both Puget Sound clean up efforts and the Port’s redevelopment plans.

This presents Langley with an opportunity to not only have a new artificial reef, but one that is interesting and compelling enough to draw divers from throughout the Pacific Northwest Region, but from throughout the states, as well.

The objective of tonight’s presentation is to get the Port to agree to include the dive site design in its upcoming JARPA (Joint Aquatic Resources Permit Application). Since an enhanced dive site and the development of the area as a dive destination overlap squarely with the Port’s mission, values and specific goals for supporting diving, I’m hoping that they will agree also to commit some human and grant funding resources.

The first big hurdle will be getting the 30% design engineered for the JARPA. How that gets done remains to be seen, at the moment.

I will continue to blog about this project until we have a new dive site. One of the next steps here, on the blog, will be to get my 8th grade son’s video about the Langley Tire Reef posted.

I will write an update on tonight’s meeting, tomorrow.

Thanks

Russell Sparkman