Suspicions that 20 metres of carpet found on a reef near Rabbit Island came from the Tay Street artificial reef are being confirmed.

The carpet was found a couple of weeks ago by diver Ryan Belworthy and a couple of mates. It was his first dive with a GoPro camera which resulted in him posting a video of the dive online.

Bay of Plenty Regional Council contractors retrieved the bag from the reef.

Bay of Plenty Regional Council pollution prevention manager Nick Zaman thinks the material is from the bottom half of a geotextile bag from the former surf reef.

'It looks very clean and there is no sign of any growth, which indicates it was buried beneath the sand until very recently,” says Nick.

'It's likely to have come loose from the sea bed during the recent large swells.”

The divers didn't see any damage or disturbance of the sea bed in the area where the geotextile bag was found, says Nick.

A survey of the surf reef site will be undertaken by Pacific Diving as soon as the weather and swell conditions are favourable, which is earlier than the scheduled June survey.

The artificial surf reef was sited 250m off the beach at Tay Street, less than two kilometres from where Ryan found it, and the current generally sets east-west along the beach.

The artificial reef comprised large bags full of sand on the sea floor intended to promote a ‘good' riding wave, but it never worked as promoted.

The $1.5 million reef was built by the Mount Maunganui Reef Trust from 2005 to 2008 through donations from the public and community funding groups - $250,000 from TECT, $200,000 from Pub Charity and $80,000 from Bay Trust.

Designed by Raglan-based company ASR, the sandbag structure concept was also been sold around the world, including Britain, where there are also problems reported.

It didn't work. Instead of creating world-class waves attracting surfers from around the world, lifesavers said it instead caused rips, holes and scouring in a popular section of beach. The giant sand bags were cut open and lifted in out in an $87,000 contract awarded to Underwater Solutions. That took place last spring, September to November.