In 2001 New York City offered as many as 1300 subway cars for use as artificial reefs, but the project was de-railed by a single person.

Cindy Zipf and her Clean Ocean Action organization raised enough unreasonable fears over the longevity of the cars in the ocean and their asbestos content, that the state government refused them. Many of the cars went to Delaware and South Carolina, which were happy to get such a windfall.

After much public outcry and government consternation, the last 250 cars were finally accepted for use as reefs in 2003.

Four years later in 2007, these cars had all tumbled most of the way down the slope to deeper water (as expected) and were completely intact. A car surveyed further south was also found intact - see below. So far, Clean Ocean Action, American Littoral Society, Sierra Club, and other environmental extremists have proven to be completely wrong.

Read more here http://njscuba.net/reefs/site_nj_redbirds.html