June/July 2009 Newsletter

Sea Grant Spotlight on: Meredith Haas
Meredith Haas, marine research communications specialist, returns to Rhode Island Sea Grant by way of Wyoming.

Congratulations, graduates!
Lauren Engel, Gwen Hancock, and Alicia Schaffner received their Juris Doctor degrees from Roger Williams University School of Law on May 22, 2009. 

URI Sustainable Seafood Fellows
The URI Sustainable Seafood Initiative has hired three Sustainable Seafood Fellows for the summer. The three fellows are an international group, hailing from Mumbai, Brazil, and Japan.

Megan Higgins to present at EnergyOcean 2009 Conference
Rockport, Maine is the venue for EnergyOcean 2009, “the world’s leading conference and exhibition focused on renewable ocean energy.”  Megan Higgins, Research Counsel for the Rhode Island Sea Grant Legal Program, will present her article entitled Is Marine Renewable Energy a Viable Industry in the United States? Lessons learned from the 7th Marine Law Symposium. 

Costa-Pierce keynote speaker at Aquaculture Canada 2009
Rhode Island Sea Grant Director Barry Costa-Pierce gave the keynote address, "Aquaculture as Culture: Trajectories of Change in the Social Ecology of Aquatic Foods," at the Aquaculture Association of Canada's annual meeting in May. More information is available at www.aquacultureassociation.ca/ac09/sessions.htm.

Boat safety training wows participants
All boaters should be familiar with boat safety methods and procedures. Though crews work as a team, individuals should be trained to be confident in their abilities to act quickly and calmly.

Marine Affairs Summer Courses
Two courses focusing on ocean and coastal law are being taught at Roger Williams University School of Law by adjunct professors associated with the Marine Affairs Institute, Harlan Doliner (Partner at Pepe & Hazard, LLP, specializing in maritime security/environment, transaction risk evaluation and support, facility siting, regulatory compliance, and strategic environmental management) and Susan Farady (Director of Marine Affairs Institute/Rhode Island Sea Grant Legal Program).

Eliminator sets the bar for the future of fisheries
An innovative net technology that reduced bycatch in the haddock fishery has gotten the attention of the acting NOAA assistant administrator for fisheries, Jim Balsiger, who cited the “Eliminator Trawl,” also known as the “Ruhle Trawl,” in a recent column in the Gloucester Times.  

Sea Grant Law Fellow projects for summer 2009
Four Sea Grant Law Fellows have been hired for the summer to undertake a variety of research requests ranging from regulatory guidance for hydrokinetic projects to an analysis of port tariffs in greater New England. 

Rhode Island Sea Grant and the Council for Research award $10,000 for the new Marine Related Grant competition
This year, Chris Roman, assistant professor of oceanography at the URI Graduate School of Oceanography, received a $10,000 award from the URI Council for Research for his proposal to develop a new low-cost camera system for marine ecosystem monitoring.

Encyclopedia of Sustainability Science and Technology
The new Encyclopedia of Sustainability Science and Technology, published by Springer, is being created by scientists and engineers for the use of their peers in order to expand their scope of understanding in fields beyond their expertise.

June 30: Ocean SAMP stakeholder meeting
6 p.m.
URI Bay Campus, Coastal Institute Hazard Rooms, Narragansett

July 16 : Annual Summer Lecture Series: Offshore Wind Farms – The Coast Guard Review Process
7 p.m.
North Kingstown Free Library, 100 Boone St.

August 6: Rhode Island Ocean Zoning: Where NOT to Put a Wind Farm in Rhode Island Waters
7 p.m.
South Kingstown Peace Dale Library, 1057 Kingstown Rd.