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| Marine Matters: Merger Mania in the Gulf | | 11/19/2009 2:20:00 PM | Email this article • Print this article |
by Melissa Waterman
Feature Writer
Earlier this month, two entities in Portland, each bearing the words "Gulf of Maine" in their respective monikers, decided to merge. The Gulf of Maine Research Institute melded the Gulf of Maine Ocean Observing System into its midst, bringing five of the system's employees into its fold.
The absorption of the one by the other makes a lot of fiscal and scientific sense, in my opinion. The Gulf of Maine Research Institute (GMRI) is the golden child of marine science in Maine right now, outshining its brethren, the Bigelow Ocean Science Laboratory in Boothbay Harbor and the Darling Marine Center in Walpole in funding and positive press. According to its own press release announcing the merger, "GMRI advances sustainable uses of marine resources and nurtures science literacy through a fusion of science, education and community programs. GMRI's lab on the waterfront in Portland houses an international team of scientists working to fill key information gaps about commercial fish species, critical and sensitive habitats, fishing practices and gear technology, and economic decision making."
GMRI emerged from the decades-old idea of housing a world-renowned northern waters aquarium on the Portland waterfront. The physical aquarium idea morphed into a virtual aquarium with the advent of the World Wide Web, featuring fact-filled pages on lobsters, herring, turtles and undersea landscapes. Funding procured by Senator Olympia Snowe, a vigorous private capital campaign and donation of the former Naval Reserve Pier next to the Portland Fish Exchange by the federal government allowed the institute to evolve from virtual to real with the opening of its new bricks-and-mortar facility in 2005. Since then the institute has become a neutral scientific player in the fisheries, lobster and policy worlds here and in Washington, D.C.
Whew! The Gulf of Maine Ocean Observing System (GoMOOS), on the other hand, is the stepchild of the federal government. GoMOOS was set up in 1999 as a pilot for a national integrated ocean observing system. With federal funds in hand, the organization ultimately deployed 11 buoys throughout the Gulf of Maine, from Massachusetts Bay to the Scotian Shelf. The buoys were marvels of technology. Each was able to take detailed measurements both above and below the surface of the water and transmit those data to scientists every hour. The data, in turn, was presented to anyone who needed it via telephone, cell phone or the Internet, without cost to the users.
Scientists like Neil Pettigrew of the University of Maine, who studies currents and water masses in the Gulf, were delighted. In a Portland Press Herald article last year he said that the GoMOOS buoys had allowed oceanographers to learn more about the Gulf of Maine since 2001 than they had learned in the past 50 years. Vessel captains and their pilots were delighted. With a click of the computer mouse they could receive data on wind, wave and weather conditions hourly. Fishermen were delighted. They knew what sea conditions were like far from the coast with an accuracy and detail absent before. Even the meteorologists at the National Weather Service office in Gray were delighted. They were getting data on sea smoke and fog, two measurements that had never been recorded regularly in the Gulf.
Too bad the money ran out. In 2006 the federal budget reduced GoMOOS's allocation from $1.8 million to $500,000. The organization, which is now owned and operated by the University of Maine, scrambled to find additional private dollars. It has been floundering ever since. Currently its annual budget is $700,000, but GoMOOS officials say $1.2 million is needed to keep all 11 buoys working. And they haven't got it.
Four of the 11 buoys have been yanked from the Gulf of Maine: buoy C in Casco Bay, buoy D off the New Meadows River, buoy J in Cobscook Bay and the offshore Scotian Shelf buoy. The Penobscot Bay buoy was at risk of being removed late last year but the Maine Sea Grant program stepped in to fund its operation for one more year.
GMRI has had the great good fortune of procuring steady money through its science and education grants, research projects and private fund-raising. GoMOOS has not. Absorbing GoMOOS, with its $500,00 funding gap, will tax even GMRI's remarkably lucrative luck.
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