SEATTLE—With the Alaskan Way Viaduct along Seattle’s waterfront slated to down late next decade, a group of local fishermen has its eyes on the girders and guardrails for a whole new structure: underwater reefs for ailing Puget Sound rockfish and lingcod.

Rob Tobeck recently came up with the green idea to recycle clean parts of the elevated highway for marine fish habitat instead of sending it to the landfill.

“I’ve always been frustrated with the lack of good bottomfishing you’d think we would have in Puget Sound,” explains the former center for the Seattle Seahawks and Washington State University, as well as Coastal Conservation Association member. “I’ve seen in Florida where they’ve taken old barges and old bridges and that’s where you go fish.”

Lined up behind him is Bear Holmes, a 62-year-old fourth-generation Washingtonian who chairs CCA Washington’s Puget Sound Marine Enhancement Committee and who admits to personally aiding in the decline of those stocks in his younger days. He wants his grandchildren to one day enjoy that same quality of fishing he did in the day.

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