India, Nov. 1 -- A tugboat ruined by fire found a new job at the bottom of the ocean. According to the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, its Division of Marine Fisheries sank the tugboat Thomas Dann at a reef site called AR-305, off Cape Lookout, on August 1, 2024. The tug was built in 1981 and suffered a catastrophic fire in 2016. Marinex Construction Co. of Charleston, South Carolina, donated the vessel to the state's Artificial Reef Program. Now it rests on a reef that is a favorite haunt of fishermen and divers.

An artificial reef is a manmade structure placed underwater, mostly to help marine life thrive in waters where the sea floor is almost always flat and bare. It is like building a little community in a desert...