CCA Billy’s Barge Artificial reef deployed in waters off Carrabelle

                 A barge that was once used in the film “Anaconda” will be deployed today as an artificial reef off of Franklin County.

The 110 foot “CCA Billy’s Barge” reef will be in about 50 feet of water about 10 miles off of Carrabelle – north of an existing reef called Robby’s reef.

The barge will be deployed by the Organization for Artificial reefs and the Coastal Conservation Association Building Conservation Trust.

It will be called the CCA Billy’s Barge Artificial reef after Billy Solberger, an avid fishermen and former board member of the Organization for Artificial Reefs.

The Barge was a movie prop for the 1997 Motion Picture "Anaconda" which means that J-Lo, Ice Cube, Eric Stoltz, and Jon Voight all spent time on the former river tug before it was converted into a construction barge after the movie wrapped.  

The groups are hopeful that the reef will be productive as habitat for species such as Kingfish and Spanish Mackerel, and well as seasonal visitors such as Cobia.    

And they expect it to have a positive economic impact on the county.

For every dollar spend locally on artificial reefs, $138 comes back into the local community.

Funding for the project comes from the Solberger family, OAR, CCA Florida and the CCA Music City Chapter through the CCA Building Conservation Trust.

This is a privately funded project with no government funding involved.

Water Marine of Orange Beach, Alabama is the contractor for the project.

The proposed latitude and longitude coordinates for the site is 29 39.670 N- 84 30.000 W.

For more information or to join OAR or CCA please visit http://oarreefs.org or www.joincca.org.

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