Shaw says the grant will be used specifically to establish a water chemistry laboratory in Blue Hill with the capacity to monitor water quality, phytoplankton (red tide) and contamination in fish and shellfish in Maine waters. It also will support MERI’s long-term research on toxic pollutants and health effects in US Atlantic coast seals by funding improvements to the marine mammal care unit and surgery. “The data coming out of these labs will provide much-needed information about the health of the coastal ecosystem that will help communities and resource managers protect fragile areas of local bays and the Gulf of Maine,” Shaw says. In addition to enabling MERI to conduct baseline studies characterizing the health of local bays, she says the grant will support studies that assess the impacts of fish farming, dredging, runoff, and sewage outfalls. “With the labs we hope to build community awareness, understanding and ultimately stewardship of our coast and the real world problems we are facing here.”

Field and lab equipment purchased with the grant will be used to support MERI’s participation in federal monitoring initiatives, such as the US EPA’s National Coastal Assessment (NCA), a program that broadly examines the health of Maine’s coastal waters using a suite of ecological indicators. Last summer MERI conducted the NCA’s sampling at shallow water stations in Blue Hill Bay, Cobscook Bay, and areas of the Downeast coast. MERI also collaborates with state volunteer monitoring initiatives such as the Shore Stewards Program which uses volunteer groups to examine water chemistry parameters and toxic phytoplankton species (red tide) along sensitive areas of the coast. This spring when the labs are operational, MERI will train a group of volunteers to monitor water quality and shellfish health in Blue Hill Bay.

The grant supports MERI’s long-term goal to establish an extensive knowledge base “that can be relied on by resource managers and policy makers who must make sound decisions about oceans management,” Shaw says. “These new labs will be a tremendous resource for the community,” she adds. “We anticipate that other groups will want to collaborate on local studies to answer pressing questions about the health of our coast, and that will exponentially increase the value of the facility.”

Other important beneficiaries of the grant will be students who are enrolled in area schools. “Exposure to a professional laboratory environment will bring students closer to marine sciences and reinforce what they are learning in books and in the field,” Shaw says. MERI’s Ocean School program, which was piloted in Blue Hill schools last fall, is an experiential education program that takes place in the classroom during winter months and culminates in the spring and fall with beach walks and island field trips led by MERI naturalists. “By opening our labs to area students, we hope to help them achieve Maine state learning standards and at the same time to create excitement about marine sciences and the ecosystem that we live in.”

MERI was founded in 1990 to conduct scientific research and gather essential data required to monitor the health of the marine environment. Authorized by the National Marine Fisheries Service to collect tissues from marine mammals in the Gulf of Maine to evaluate their pollutant loads, MERI conducted a ground-breaking study in Spring 2001 that found wild harbor seals in the Gulf of Maine may contain significant body burdens to toxic chemicals. As top predators, seals and other marine mammals are important sentinels for the health of the oceans and for contaminant-related effects in people. For information on MERI’s research program and current education initiatives, call 207-374-2135, email meri@downeast.net, or visit them online at www.meriresearch.org.