Salisbury Welding Students Make Artificial Reef Contribution

OCEAN CITY — While the Ocean City Reef Foundation continues one of its most prolific times ever, with tons of material going down on the vast network of artificial reefs off the coast of the resort, it continues to get a major contribution from an unlikely source.

For about six years, Parkside High welding instructor Biazzio “Bill” Giordano has had his students making large steel structures for the Ocean City Reef Foundation to submerge on the growing network of artificial reefs off the coast. The latest batch was recently deployed on the artificial reefs last week as part of a larger major undertaking by the foundation.

The first new truckloads of pre-cast concrete pipe recently arrived at the foundation’s staging area in West Ocean City for future deployment on the reef network. The tons of concrete pipe will be transported to the offshore sites by the 100-foot-plus “Iron Lady,” out of Salisbury, which recently conducted another major project for the Ocean City Reef Foundation.

The “Iron Lady” earlier this month dismantled the old “New Hope,” which for years had foundered along the bulkhead at the commercial harbor in West Ocean City. What could be salvaged of the “New Hope” was transported offshore and sunk over the Captain Bob Gower Reef about eight miles offshore.

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