U.S. Department of Commerce / NOAA	/ OAR /  PMEL  / OERD\  \ NMFS / AFSC / RACE/	FOCI
	Fisheries-Oceanography Coordinated Investigations

ATTENDING

Mark Ablondi, Kevin Bailey, Al Hermann, Art Kendall, Allen Macklin, Jim Overland, Ron Reed, Beth Sinclair, Phyllis Stabeno, and Kathy Mier (rapporteur)

• CDR Mark Ablondi has replaced CAPT Mark Koehn as PMEL/OERD's Deputy Division Leader.  CAPT Koehn has replaced CAPT Dale Bretschneider who has retired as PMEL Deputy Director.

 
•  Nine SEBSCC Phase III proposals were received.  The total amount requested is ~$780K for next year and ~$335K for the following year.  These totals are somewhat greater than the actual amount available.  Proposals will now undergo a review process.  The recommendations board will meet August 28 and 29.

 
• FOCI PIs wishing ship time next year must complete Project Description Forms (PDFs, ../../operations/guidance/PDF_demo.html) and send them to Allen Macklin, FOCI Coordinator, by August 11.

 
• Art Kendall announced that he will not be AFSC's Field Operations Leader (FOL) for the next field season due to his retiring next year.

 
• The NOAA Science Advisory Board has requested a presentation on FOCI-type research to be given at their meeting in Fairbanks later this month. Alan Springer, UAF, will make the presentation.  FOCI has provided Alan with appropriate presentation materials.

 
• NMFS Alaska Region may receive $2 million in disaster relief from a bill expected to be signed by President Clinton. The region expects to use about a quarter of the money to prepary Supplemental Environmental Impact Statements.  The rest will be made available to AFSC for Bering Sea ecosystem research.   Art Kendall is drafting a one-page description and budget of five integrated projects having a regime shift emphasis. Those contributing to this draft are Beth Sinclair, Phyllis Stabeno, Pat Livingson, Allen Macklin, Bill Karp, and Jack Helle.

• MF00-07 (Sinclair, greenbelt water properties, mid-water trawls) - Beth Sinclair summarized this second cruise in a two-year pilot study to sample forage fish and squid in the Green Belt area. The surveys were designed after Russian surveys that have been conducted in the western Bering for 20 years, and used Aleutian wing trawls with a liner. Fish were sampled from 200, 500, and 1000-m depths. Sampling was more extensive this year than last. Beth noted that when comparing the main areas fished (Pribilof Canyon, Bogoslof Island, Unimak Pass), the kinds of fish caught were the same but in very different proportions. Also this year, much more squid was caught, including an undescribed squid and squid that were much larger than normal.

 
• HX234 - Jeff Napp and Chris Baier are working with Terry Whitledge aboard the Alpha Helix taking water samples and CTDs in support of the North Pacific Marine Research Program project "Summertime plankton community structure and trophic dynamics in the SE Bering Sea shelf: importance for nutrient cycling and prey production for planktivorous fishes."

 
• The Oshoro Maru departs from Victoria, B.C., next week for nine days of ship time in the Bering Sea. FOCI personnel will be doing Methot trawls, looking primarily at young of the year pollock.

The next FOCI PI meeting will be at 10 a.m. on Thursday, 10 August 2000, in the AFSC Director's Conference Room (4/2143).  Please submit to Allen Macklin, no later than the day before the meeting, agenda items and fax-ready copies of figures or handouts that you intend to present at the next meeting. Alternately, presentation materials may be posted on the WWW or e-mailed to remote participants before the meeting.

Mail corrections and addenda to the FOCI Coordinator.