Contact: Gordon Helm, NOAA FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Elizabeth Irwin, UCSC 6/10/98
Naomi Seligman, Rep. Sam Farr
Construction will soon begin on a $19.4 million state-of-the-art research facility in Santa Cruz, Calif., for the National Marine Fisheries Service, designed to study salmon and West Coast groundfish. It will replace an obsolete lab facility in Tiburon, Calif., the administrator of the Commerce Department's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced today.
Today's groundbreaking ceremony for the new facility occurs one day before President Clinton opens the National Ocean Conference in Monterey, Calif., to emphasize the importance of the ocean to life on Earth. At the ocean conference, government experts, business executives, scientists, and environmentalists will come together to examine the opportunities and the challenges the nation faces to restore and preserve irreplaceable ocean resources.
"This groundbreaking ceremony demonstrates NOAA's national commitment to provide state- of-the-art scientific research facilities to study marine resources around the country," said D. James Baker, Commerce under secretary for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator. "The synergy that comes from partnering with academia and other local institutions to tackle science for tough fishery issues will be tremendous."
"Oceans sustain life on earth and provide us with many vital resources," Baker added. "They are a source of food, energy, commerce, medicine and recreation. They shape our weather, and link us to other nations. In the 21st century, we will look increasingly to the oceans to meet our everyday needs."
"What better way to open the National Ocean Conference than to break ground for a world- class marine lab," said Representative Sam Farr (D-Calif.). "This fisheries service lab is one of more than 20 venerable institutions that call the Monterey Bay area home. Their presence here underlines the importance of the oceans to the economic and environmental well being of our community and the world."
The 53,400 square foot Santa Cruz laboratory will be located adjacent to the University of California Long Marine Laboratory, and the University's Marine Discovery Center that is currently under construction. The new facility will join a growing number of marine science facilities in the Monterey Bay area providing the opportunity for additional partnerships with state, federal, academia and private research entities.
"I am most pleased to greet a new neighboring research facility located adjacent to UCSC's Long Marine Laboratory -- and I am delighted to welcome a new partner in marine research. The Monterey Bay Region is creating a unique consortium of leading ocean sciences organizations, and the new NMFS facility, with its distinguished scientists, is a major addition to this effort," said UC Santa Cruz Chancellor M.R.C. Greenwood, who also is current president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
"This new laboratory includes a seawater system to provide our scientists the tools to study crucial salmon and rockfish biology and population dynamics along with other important environmental research," said Rolland Schmitten, director of the National Marine Fisheries Service. "Once completed in early 2000, the new lab will employ more than 40 fisheries scientists and staff."
The salmon fishery off the California coast is important to both recreational and commercial fishermen. The need for salmon-related research has increased recently with the reduction of salmon stocks along the West Coast and the listing of several salmonid species under the Endangered Species Act.
Rockfish are also an important recreational and commercial species to California fishermen. Research at the new laboratory will support the management of these stocks by providing the scientific basis for future management decisions.
Environmental research conducted at the new facility will focus on the near shore waters along the central California coast and San Francisco Bay.