St. Lucie County Artificial Reefs

The St. Lucie County reefs mapped in the county's monitoring reports sit in Nearshore Reef Site #2, a one mile square of sea floor 6.3 miles southeast of the Fort Pierce Inlet in 50 to 62 feet of water.

The county's 2008 monitoring report, prepared for St. Lucie County Public Works, says the county has three permitted artificial reef sites offshore (St. Lucie County 2008 reef monitoring report). Site #2, also known as the Nearshore Site and the Fishing Club Site, measures one mile on each side and lies 6.3 miles southeast of Ft. Pierce Inlet, with water about 50 feet deep on its western boundary and 62 feet deep on its eastern boundary. Its bottom is soft fine sand and coarse sand with shell fragments, and the report says no natural reefs or hardbottom have been found there.

The same report notes that a local fishing club, St. Lucie County, FWC, the Florida Department of Transportation and others have used Site #2 over the years to deploy reef material. The county program page describes its more recent reefs off St. Lucie County by depth, at 62, 102, 110 and 150 feet (St. Lucie County Artificial Reef Program). FWC links an explore and download tool for reef locations from its artificial reef page (FWC artificial reefs).

The St. Lucie County monitoring reports list latitude and longitude for each reef they surveyed in Site #2 off Fort Pierce, printed in degrees and decimal minutes.

The two county reports print different depth figures for the same four 2006 reefs off Fort Pierce. The 2008 report's Table 1 gives depth and top depth of 54 and 43 feet for Reef A, 53 and 43 for Reef C and 55 and 45 for Reef D (2008 report), while the June 2010 report's Table 1 lists Reef A at 52 and 46 feet, Reef C at 57 and 50 and Reef D at 54 and 46, with the same coordinates, and describes Reefs A and C as mostly concrete culverts where the 2008 table lists mixed materials (June 2010 report). The 2008 report says its Table 1 holds depths measured immediately after deployment.

St. Lucie County builds its reefs from donated heavy concrete and steel, including culverts, concrete pilings, light poles and steel vessels, and its program page gives one light pole reef a 27-foot profile.

The St. Lucie County program page says reefs are deployed to give more hardbottom areas for fishing and diving and to enhance local fisheries (St. Lucie County Artificial Reef Program). In December 2012 and January 2013, four barges of donated light poles were deployed to create two reefs: one in 62-foot depths with a profile of 27 feet, and one in 102-foot depths with a profile of 25 feet. The county also reports placing 2,000 tons of concrete and steel at two locations, 150 and 110 feet deep, with profiles of 11 and 14 feet. All were deployed with help from FWC's Artificial Reef Construction Grant.

For the 2006 Site #2 reefs, the 2008 report found that reefs B and D, built of dock piles, and A and C, built of mixed materials, each form complex mounds about 10 feet high with lateral extents of 120 to 220 feet, and that all four showed little to no scour and settlement two years after deployment off Fort Pierce (2008 report, summary).

The Civic Center Reef has an unusual core. According to the June 2010 report, the Sterling Barge was deployed beginning May 10, 2006, came to rest on its side, was righted on May 15, 2006, and ended up upside down on the bottom (June 2010 report, reef history). The report's reef history puts the next step on January 31, 2007, when 555 tons of concrete, including remnants of the demolished Fort Pierce Civic Center, were placed on top of the barge, while its reef location list dates that 555 ton load 1/13/2007; on February 7, 2007, another 539 tons of mixed concrete with many culverts followed. The report puts the finished reef's footprint at almost 200 by 200 feet with a vertical profile of almost 20 feet.

St. Lucie County says its reefs give habitat to over 110 species of fish and numerous invertebrates, and its monitoring divers have counted species reef by reef.

The program page lists triggerfish, black seabass and pelagic baitfish already using the 2012 and 2013 light pole reefs on post-deployment dives off St. Lucie County (St. Lucie County Artificial Reef Program). The 2008 report recorded 24, 15, 15 and 16 fish species on Reef Sites A to D in June 2007, and 25, 30, 24 and 32 in 2008, and lists algae, sponges, anemones, crustaceans, urchins, tunicates and hydroids among the attached life (2008 report, summary). It names snook, groupers, snappers, sheepshead and sea bass among the sport fishes found on the Site #2 reefs.

At the Civic Center Reef, the June 2010 report identified 23 fish species during its monitoring and calls the site one of the best shallow water artificial reefs in St. Lucie County for marine life (June 2010 report, summaries). These are survey records from 2007 to 2009 off Fort Pierce.

Florida law creates an artificial reef program within FWC that gives grants and technical help to coastal local governments such as St. Lucie County, and the county credits FWC's construction grant for its recent reefs.

Section 379.249 of the Florida Statutes creates the program within the commission to enhance saltwater opportunities and manage fisheries resources tied to artificial reefs, and lets the commission fund and advise coastal local governments, state universities and qualified nonprofits for siting, developing and monitoring reefs like those off St. Lucie County (section 379.249). It also requires the program to track all artificial reef development statewide in a database, and makes it unlawful to place artificial reef construction materials in state waters outside zones permitted by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers or the Department of Environmental Protection.

FWC's own page puts the statewide total at more than 4,548 planned public artificial reefs since the 1940s and says Florida has distributed more than $26,575,000 for artificial reef activities, funded through the federal Sport Fish Restoration Program and saltwater fishing license revenue (FWC artificial reefs). FWC states that reefs can only be built by state or local coastal governments in permitted areas, that a private reef is not permittable off St. Lucie County or anywhere outside Escambia, Bay and Okaloosa counties, and that allowable materials include concrete, limestone boulders and heavy-gage steel at least 1/4 inch thick.

St. Lucie County invites residents to join its volunteer reef monitoring program, report catches from the reefs and donate materials or money, through the program's Marine Resource Coordinator at 772-462-1713.

The county program page lists that number for information, for the volunteer artificial reef monitoring program, for reporting fishing catches on the artificial reefs and for tax deductible contributions of either materials or money (St. Lucie County Artificial Reef Program, contact). The same page links annual monitoring reports for 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010 and a set of reef videos, including dock reefs in St. Lucie County, oyster reefs in the Indian River Lagoon and limestone reef module deployment in August 2017.

Beyond the Fort Pierce site, FWC publishes statewide reef location files on its artificial reef page (FWC reef locations). The Fort Pierce Inlet and Urca de Lima guides cover the nearshore wreck preserve and the inlet itself.

Last verified: October 22, 2026; for this Treasure Coast reef guide the county reef program page, both county monitoring reports, the FWC artificial reef page and statute 379.249 were each read again.