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Event Response Funding Helps State Managers Mitigate Alexandrium Bloom
The Center for Sponsored Coastal Ocean Researchís (CSCOR) HAB Event Response Program provided emergency funding to the state of Maine to extend their Casco Bay monitoring project for five additional weeks to maintain the vital dataset that has kept hundreds of acres of shellfish beds open during the Alexandrium (or “red tide”) event. With this funding, the Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR), in collaboration with the Casco Bay Estuary Partnership, will continue to measure Alexandrium abundance and sample sentinel mussel bags placed at the edges of shellfish resource areas. High cell counts just outside Casco Bay were observed on June 8-11, 2006 by researchers on the CSCOR funded R/V Oceanus cruise, and alerted Maine DMR to the need for continued Casco Bay monitoring. These data will also provide a critical link between inshore shellfish toxicity, and local and offshore Alexandrium abundance that can be incorporated into models to predict shellfish toxicity. For more information, please contact CSCOR.HAB_Event_Response@noaa.gov