They say that the road to hell is paved with the best intentions... if that is the case, then some people have certainly created their own hell thanks to the actions they took years ago in the name of the environment.

See original materials here: Tire Reef Off Florida Proves a Disaster

The article details that back in 1972 a plan was implemented to dispose of a bunch of old tires by creating an artificial reef off the coast of Florida. The idea being to provide a habitat for sea creatures, help protect the natural reef, and at the same time provide a place to dispose of the tires.

Unfortunately while the intentions were good, the actual results are far from it. The tires have decomposed down to steel belts in some cases, and have broken away from the man-made reef in many cases to wind up sweeping the ocean floor and doing more harm than good there -- including getting swept into the natural reef and blocking natural growth of coral.

What started out as what should have been a good idea has become anything but. It reminds me of a project that was done near my home town. Some people decided that the natural shoal that existed in a harbor there was a danger to boating traffic and would be better served by being turned into an island that Sea gulls would be able to use as a habitat. Millions of dollars were spent bulkheading up an island, then filling in the bulkhead with sand and materials dredged from the harbor floor. An eyesore was created with ugly black creosote walls that stood several feet above sea level. Signs were plastered along the sides saying "keep off" (along with other similar rules plastered there). And keep off was what happened... the gulls kept off, and other creatures also avoided the monstrosity.

Many years later that project was completely undone. Many more millions were spent to basically return things to where they had been before anything was done. Whether or not the gulls will completely return is still to be seen. Their habitat was disturbed so long ago that their life patterns have obviously changed. They used to feed themselves off of minnows and small fish that would get caught along the shoal and they helped to clean the areas there of trash that might find it's way into the harbor. Now most feed themselves on food that is tossed to them by well meaning tourists (french fries, potato chips, popcorn, bread, etc.) Again, their diets have changed, not necessarily for the better, and getting things back to what was the original status quo isn't easy.

Making positive change that helps the environment is a noble goal, but we must be very careful in how we go about such change. Change just for the sake of change isn't going to help anything. We have to consider carefully the impacts of our actions, and also try very hard to factor in unintended consequences of actions we take. If we don't, we could (as documented in the cases here) do much more harm than good.