They Thought Dumping Millions of Tires Into the Ocean Was a Good Idea

A Goodyear blimp drifted low over the Atlantic in the spring of 1974, a mile off Fort Lauderdale, and dropped a gold-painted tire into the water. Below it, a hundred private boats followed a US Navy ship out to sea, riding low under two million used tires clipped and roped into bales. Nobody was breaking the law. The permits were signed, the mayor showed up, and the newspapers called it an environmental victory. What they were actually building would grind a living coral reef into rubble and still be costing divers money half a century later. So what exactly went wrong out there?