About the reef
The Town of Yarmouth's Department of Natural Resources developed the reef in 1978 with help from the Division of Marine Fisheries (DMF). The 127-acre site is located over 2 miles south of Bass River.
DMF and the Town of Yarmouth jointly received permits to reopen the Yarmouth reef site for extra reef materials in 2014. New material deployment consisted of approved materials of similar vertical relief. These materials targeted areas on site where divers found low concentrations of materials.
In 2019, the Massachusetts Department of Fish and Game (DFG) In-Lieu Fee Program (ILFP) funded DMF to enhance marine subtidal habitat in Nantucket Sound by deploying more materials to Yarmouth Reef. A total of 2,210 cubic yards of materials were successfully placed on the reef in January of 2020. Following the deployment, DMF monitored the new areas of the reef via SCUBA and Baited Remote Underwater Video (BRUV) surveys for the next five years.
Since the permit was reopened in 2014, there have been twenty-two deployments adding new materials to the site, with deployments relying upon the beneficial reuse of donated materials. More than 17,000 tons of materials originating from the US Coast Guard, MA DOT, Yarmouth Department of Natural Resources, and the MBTA’s South Coast Rail Project have enhanced more than 10 acres of structured habitat on the reef site.
Current status of the reef
Today, you can find a wide variety of life on this reef including;
- Black sea bass
- Blue mussel
- Blue runner
- Butterfish
- Cunner
- Knobbed whelk
- Lesser amberjack
- Lobster
- Longfin squid
- Northern sea robin
- Sand tiger shark
- Scup
- Smooth and Spiny dogfish
- Summer flounder
- Tautog
- Winter flounder
Marine life observed at the Yarmouth Artificial Reef. Clockwise from top left: a sand tiger shark; a school of scup and black sea bass; a spiny dogfish; and a bluntnose stingray.