oastal
Marine Institute
The Coastal Marine
Institute (CMI) at Louisiana State University was formed under a
Cooperative Agreement between the University and the MMS. The CMI Program at LSU is coordinated
through the
Environmental Studies Program at the Gulf of Mexico Regional Office of MMS.
The first Cooperative Agreement between MMS and LSU was initiated in 1993.
The achievements of the first agreement are
reviewed in the MMS report
Management of the Louisiana State University, Coastal Marine Institute Task
Orders from 1992-1998, Final Report. The
program was continued with a second Cooperative Agreement for 5 more years (1
October 1998 to 30 September 2003). Recently, a
third agreement was signed to extend the partnership until September 2008.
The purpose of the CMI Program is to permit MMS to take advantage of
highly qualified, scientific expertise at local levels to
- Collect and disseminate environmental information needed for Outer
Continental Shelf (OCS) oil and gas and marine minerals decisions,
- Address local and regional OCS related environmental and resource issues
of mutual interest, and
- Strengthen the MMS-State of Louisiana partnership in addressing OCS oil
and gas and marine minerals information needs.
The objectives of the Cooperative Agreement are to
- Respond to MMS, State, and local information needs and interests with
local expertise of national caliber in the OCS relevant disciplines found at
Louisiana State University;
- Broaden recognition and comprehension of study results through performance
and presentation of findings by a highly credible local research institution;
- Improve existing local capabilities and facilities for innovative
scientific research relevant to OCS resource management issues;
- Use the interdisciplinary environment of a research university to foster
process-oriented studies, needed technologies and concepts, and synthesis of
information that will benefit environmental and resource management;
- Achieve consensus between MMS and Louisiana regarding the most important
environmental research needs relevant to the OCS Program; and
- Reduce the cost to Louisiana and MMS of obtaining resource management
information by co-funding information acquisition activities.
Within this Cooperative Agreement, MMS and Louisiana jointly agree on the
most important research needs in the context of the OCS Program.
Ongoing Coastal Marine Institute
Studies
Completed Coastal Marine Institute
Studies
CMI projects address one or more of the following target areas:
- environmental aspects of technologies for extracting and transporting
non-energy resources;
- environmental response to changing energy extraction and transport
technologies;
- analyses and synthesis of existing data/information from previous studies;
- modeling of environmental, social, and economic processes and systems;
- new information about the structure/function of affected systems via
application of descriptive and experimental means;
- projects that improve the application and
distribution of multi-source information.