Artificial Reefs in Tampa Bay — Tampa, Florida

Hillsborough County's reefs are spread along the full length of its bay waters. A Winter 2016 report in Bay Soundings described the eight reefs constructed by Hillsborough County in Tampa Bay as reaching from the Courtney Campbell Causeway in the north to Egmont Key in the south. The program belongs to the Environmental Protection Commission of Hillsborough County (EPC), which funds it through the EPC Pollution Recovery Fund with the stated goal of increasing habitat diversity in the bay.

The most detailed public list is the FWC Boating and Angling Guide to Tampa Bay, produced by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission with Tampa Bay Estuary Program specialty license plate funds and the Federal Aid in Sport Fish Restoration Fund. It numbers every reef shown on the guide and gives material, depth and coordinates. Its entries on the Tampa and Hillsborough side of the bay are Picnic Island Reef, Picnic Island Pier Reef, Port Tampa Reef, Howard Frankland Reef, Courtney Campbell Reef, Ballast Point Pier Reef, Bahia Beach Reef and Egmont Key Reef. The guide also notes that many more reefs lie in the offshore Gulf waters of Pinellas and Manatee counties and are not shown.

Most of the Hillsborough reefs on the FWC list are recycled concrete. The FWC guide lists Picnic Island Reef as concrete culverts and fittings in 26 feet of water, and Picnic Island Pier Reef as concrete reef pyramids and reefballs at 16 to 18 feet. Port Tampa Reef, the one exception to an all-concrete pattern among these entries, combines steel barges, concrete pilings and modules at 24 feet.

Bridge and causeway projects supplied much of the rest. Howard Frankland Reef is concrete bridge rubble and pilings at 16 feet, and Courtney Campbell Reef is concrete pilings at 16 feet, both named for Tampa Bay causeways. Ballast Point Pier Reef, the shallowest on the list at 8 feet, is made of concrete pilings, slabs, culverts and even benches. To the south, the guide gives Bahia Beach Reef and Egmont Key Reef the same description: concrete bridge pilings and slabs and culvert pipes at 19 to 24 feet.

Those choices match state rules. The FWC Artificial Reef Program lists allowable materials as concrete, limestone boulders and heavy-gage steel at least one-quarter inch thick, with standards set by U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Florida Department of Environmental Protection permits. Deployed material must be heavy, stable, durable and non-polluting. The Tampa Bay guide adds that reefs generally may include concrete reefballs, bridge rubble, old boats and retired military hardware cleaned in accordance with Florida law, though the Hillsborough entries on its list are concrete and steel.

Only governments. FWC states that artificial reef construction can be completed only by state or local coastal governments, meaning a county or city, in areas permitted by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and that the Corps does not issue reef permits to private citizens, fishing clubs or nongovernmental organizations. FWC adds that private reef programs exist only in Escambia, Bay and Okaloosa counties, so a private reef in Hillsborough County waters is not permittable, and dropping material outside a permitted area can count as illegal ocean dumping under federal law.

In practice the EPC builds the county's reefs and the FWC Artificial Reef Program, which provides financial and technical assistance to coastal local governments, nonprofit corporations and state universities, helps pay for and assess them. FWC reports that since the 1940s more than 4,548 planned public artificial reefs have been placed in state and federal waters off Florida, which ranks among the most active of the 15 Gulf and Atlantic coastal states in reef building. The program's 2026-27 grant call closed on March 20, 2026. Volunteers have also helped: Hillsborough County ELAPP photographs held by USF Digital Commons show Cockroach Bay Youth Environmental Stewardship Camp members unloading large pipes for an artificial reef on January 16, 1997.

Bay Soundings reported in 2016 that more than 60 species of fish, including gag grouper, mangrove snapper, snook and tarpon, use artificial reefs in Tampa Bay. The FWC Tampa Bay guide describes the sequence of colonization: once material is deployed, marine life begins to settle on it, and as the reef ages and becomes encrusted with algae, barnacles and corals, small fish move in and attract larger predators such as grouper and amberjack.

The EPC has tried to measure that use through anglers. Bay Soundings described a Guide to Artificial Reefs to be published at the EPC website in spring 2016 with locational coordinates for all eight Hillsborough County reefs, paired with an initiative asking fishermen to act as citizen scientists by documenting what they catch. Tom Ash, EPC assistant director for water management, said at the time that no additional reefs were planned, and that any future Hillsborough reefs would probably be smaller, lower profile structures that more closely mimic the bay's natural live-bottom habitats.

Two of the reef names match City of Tampa parks in South Tampa. Picnic Island Park in South Tampa has an extra-wide, double-lane concrete boat ramp open 24 hours, with 13 spaces for vehicles with trailers, 30 vehicle-only spaces and an adjacent fishing pier. FWC's Picnic Island Reef and Picnic Island Pier Reef share the park's name.

Ballast Point Park, on the east coast of South Tampa facing Hillsborough Bay, has a single-lane boat ramp with a boarding dock and four spaces for vehicles with trailers. Its reef carries the pier's name, but the City of Tampa reports that the 600-foot pier was closed as of spring 2025 because of major damage caused by Hurricanes Helene and Milton, so the Ballast Point Pier Reef in 8 feet of water is reached by boat while the pier remains closed.

Yes, in a regional study. A University of Florida IFAS fact sheet, Economic Impacts of Artificial Reefs: Hillsborough County, FL (EDIS SG106, published February 2012), summarizes research by Florida Sea Grant and UF that asked private boaters and for-hire operators and their clients about artificial reef use during 2009 across a six-county region of southwest Florida. The Hillsborough County results were issued as a one-page fact sheet, part of a series covering each county in the study.

That work sits alongside the bay's broader management. The FWC Tampa Bay guide that maps the Hillsborough reefs was funded by Tampa Bay Estuary Program specialty license plates, and the EPC reef program draws on its Pollution Recovery Fund, so reef building in Hillsborough County waters is paid for through the same estuary program and county environmental agency that oversee Tampa Bay's restoration work.