Nor'Easter Spring/Summer 1996

Nor'easter Marine Advisory

Connecticut

Yale Sea Grant Interns Aid Watershed Efforts

Operation Pathfinder

Maine / New Hampshire

Lobster Institute Hosts International Conference

Program Raises Environmental Awareness

Spring Cleaning Along the Charles

Aquaculture Comes to Boston Harbor

Lawn Care Methods Save Environment and Money

Aquaculture Course Spawns New Opportunities

Ronald C. Baird Named National Sea Grant Director

Promoting Sustainable Shellfish Management Techniques

Lecture Series Centered Around Coastal Management Decisions Theme

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CONNECTICUT

Yale Sea Grant Interns
Aid Watershed Efforts

A special group of students, the Sea Grant coastal outreach interns, is working on projects to assist municipal officials and inform the public about watersheds and Long Island Sound. The interns, graduate students at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, participate through the Center for Coastal and Watershed Systems. To date, their projects have focused on various aspects of the West River in greater New Haven. The river is the focus of several pilot management and restoration efforts by local, state, and federal agencies. The interns create educational programs and collect critical data on the watershed. For example, one project involved a biological survey of the area. Another involved ways to acquire coastal open space. A third is a survey asking how residents value the river, which may help policy makers to predict community support for restoration projects.

These are a few of the projects generated by the productive collaboration between Yale and Sea Grant that will help to preserve and restore critical habitat areas. Heather Crawford, a Sea Grant Marine Advisory environmental educator based at Yale, works with the interns and helps teach field training modules for students of coastal ecosystems.

Operation Pathfinder

On behalf of the Sea Grant network, The Maritime Aquarium in Norwalk hosted Operation Pathfinder in July. The program is a national effort to introduce oceanography and coastal processes to minority teachers and teachers of minority students in the primary and middle schools. Twenty teachers participated in a 12-day course at Norwalk. Operation Pathfinder is a joint effort among Sea Grant, NOAA, the Naval Oceanography and Meteorology Command, and the U.S. Department of Interior's Office of Territorial and International Affairs.

The program, which is offered at six sites around the United States, seeks to improve teaching and laboratory skills, increase information about marine issues, foster cultural diversity in marine careers, and provide accessto data through emerging technologies. An estimated 600 teachers in the six regions and 9,000 students nationwide are reached directly through the project, and an additional 3,600 teachers and 2,700,000 students are reached through development programs and related publications produced by the original participants.

MAINE / NEW HAMPSHIRE

Lobster Institute Hosts
International Conference

Over 100 lobster dealers and pound operators from New England and Canada met in South Portland, Maine, in April to discuss some common problems and opportunities in the international lobster industry.

Organized by the Lobster Institute, an affiliate of the Maine/New Hampshire Sea Grant Marine Advisory Program, the meeting was also cosponsored by the Maine Import/Export Lobster Dealers Association and the Maine Lobster Pound Association.

The one-day conference provided a unique forum for the exchange of ideas on quality maintenance and assessment, processing and flavor evaluation, and discussions with both Canadian and American lobster industry and government officials on proposed U.S. and Canadian management plans and their effect on the industry.

A lively discussion centered on the proposed Homarus americanus Lobster Exchange project (HALE). Participants explored the feasibility of setting up a financial clearinghouse to minimize or eliminate bad debt and put sellers in the position of having a strong incentive to market the product. The proponents of HALE hope to maintain the kind of bilateral business arrangements that currently characterize the lobster industry for purposes of control and price stability.

Program Raises
Environmental Awareness

The first and second graders at the Newington (N.H.) public school raised Atlantic salmon this year, at the same time growing a sense of environmental stewardship. Through the Adopt-A-Salmon Family program, the students studied the importance of the watershed to their tiny charges, 200 newly hatched salmon alevin. In the spring, the 14 students each released a cupful of salmon fry, the next growth stage, into a nearby river.

Established in 1993 and sponsored by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the New England Salmon Association, and Sea Grant, the program is currently being used by schools in New Hampshire, Maine, Vermont, and Massachusetts. Designed for middle schools, it has been adapted by some teachers for use in elementary and high schools.

The program runs from October to May. It includes monthly educational materials focusing on ecosystems and biodiversity, habitat protection, cultural linkages to the environment, water quality and pollution, and other such topics, as well as two field trips, one to a salmon hatchery and one to release the juvenile salmon.

For more information, call Matt Poole, Fish and Wildlife Service, at (603) 598-4392.

MIT

Spring Cleaning
Along the Charles

A cleanup along the banks of the Charles River drew nearly 100 early-morning enthusiasts armed with gloves, trash bags, and pick-up sticks. Sponsored by MIT Sea Grant and a newly formed citizens' group, The Friends of Magazine Beach, the cleanup attracted local residents and businesspeople, schoolchildren and their science teacher, members of boathouses along the Charles, and MIT students and staff. The event's success - and the scope of the attention the area needs - have prompted what had been imagined as the first annual cleanup to become, instead, the first semiannual one.

Aquaculture
Comes to Boston Harbor

Plans are under way for the first aquaculture project in Boston Harbor. MIT Sea Grant's year-round research facility, dubbed AquaLab, will be situated on a pier at the Boston National Historical Park's Charlestown Navy Yard. "The goal here is to identify and solve critical problems restraining the growth of aquaculture in Boston Harbor and other coastal urban centers," says Cliff Goudey, MIT Sea Grant fisheries engineer, who is heading up the project.

During the first year of operation, Goudey and Neil Best, MIT ocean engineering graduate student, will determine if lingering contaminants in Boston Harbor affect cultured finfish. They will also continue development of the facility's two recirculating aquaculture systems. Additionally, AquaLab will serve as an educational tool, providing some of the park's 2 million annual visitors with a first look at one method of raising fish, as well as a broader understanding of the potential economic gains from aquaculture in Boston Harbor and off the Massachusetts coast.

Lawn Care Methods Save
Environment and Money

Estimates show that homeowners use 10 times more chemicals per acre to grow attractive lawns than do farmers to grow crops. These fertilizers and pesticides, under some conditions, can contribute to nonpoint source pollution in coastal waters. To educate homeowners in caring for lawns and landscapes using environmentally friendly practices, New York Sea Grant outreach specialists, supported by NOAA and the USDA Cooperative Extension Service, initiated the "Homescape for Water Quality" program. It is modeled after a program conducted by the Cooperative Extension Service in Virginia County.

In the fall of 1994, a typical suburban development in western New York was targeted to participate in the first Homescape program. Homeowners were teamed up with Master Gardener volunteers who had been recruited and trained by New York Sea Grant outreach specialists. These volunteers worked closely with the homeowners, helping them take and interpret soil tests to accurately predict fertilizer needs and to fill out pre-surveys of past lawn and garden practices. In addition, the Master Gardeners recommended lawn and landscape care practices that were beneficial to the environment.

Data collected from homeowner post-surveys indicated that important changes in lawn care behavior took place. Use of slow-release fertilizers replaced use of those that allow nitrogen to run off property in heavy rain, and the total amount of fertilizer applied was cut in half on some properties. People also found that environmentally sound gardening techniques actually took less time than traditional approaches. Furthermore, one happy homeowner calculated he saved $250 using the new practices, and his lawn has never looked better.

Last fall, residents from another development in western New York signed up to participate in the Homescape program, which is expanding to Long Island and the Hudson River Valley as well. This spring, with the help of New York Sea Grant outreach specialists, these homeowners will be able to make decisions about lawn and landscape care that will save time, money, and the environment.

RHODE ISLAND

Aquaculture Course
Spawns New Opportunities

In the future, some Rhode Island shellfishermen may earn a living without having to bullrake for quahogs. An aquaculture course offered by R.I. Sea Grant and the URI Cooperative Extension is showing them how to do it. Coordinated by David Beutel, URI fisheries and aquaculture research assistant, and taught by instructors from URI, regulatory agencies, and the business sector, the course covers shellfish aquaculture from biology to business. Classroom instruction and a hands-on laboratory give participants first-hand experience with aquaculture technologies including under-dock and transient gear culture. These techniques take advantage of the nutrient-rich waters of marinas and enhance growth and survival of seed stock. They also bypass the thorny issue of privatization of the estuary bottom by raising mobile seabed cages to grow out shellfish.

"The first year's oyster growth was phenomenal," says Joseph DeAlteris, Sea Grant Marine Advisory Service fisheries and aquaculture program coleader. "The oysters reached 'soup size' (2-inch diameter) in the first year, with very little mortality. We expect these oysters to reach market size this year." In addition, participants noted different growth rates at each of the three Narragansett Bay sites where cages were placed. "That's going to be important from a management perspective. We know what sites do better, so we can focus more of our resources on those sites," says DeAlteris.

In its first year last year, the course attracted mostly shellfishermen. This year, the course drew participants from more varied backgrounds: shellfishermen, high school teachers interested in introducing their students to aquaculture, and businesspeople.

DeAlteris reports that reviews have been great so far. "This course shows commercial shellfishermen that aquaculture is not a threat to their livelihood; it can actually complement what they do."

Ronald C. Baird Named
National Sea Grant Director

Ocean scientist, educator, and businessman Ronald C. Baird has been named director of the NOAA National Sea Grant College Program. Baird began his position June 3, after completing his tenure as vice-president of university relations at Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

Baird directs the National Sea Grant College Program, a network of over 300 colleges, universities, research institutions, and marine organizations nationwide.

"Being part of an enterprise whose goal is the health and well-being of our invaluable coastal resources is a challenge I welcome," Baird said.

WOODS HOLE

Promoting Sustainable Shellfish
Management Techniques

Working with a group of commercial shellfishermen and town officials from Barnstable, Mass., Dale Leavitt, WHOI Sea Grant fisheries and aquaculture specialist, is assisting in the development of a shellfish management plan for that town. As part of this effort, Leavitt designed a research program on microhabitat manipula-tion for a nonproductive area of Barnstable Harbor. The program goal is toenhance soft-shell clam recruitment in the harbor. Nearly 50 acres of the harbor were disk harrowed (plowed) and eight acres were netted. Participants hope to increase juvenile clam settlement in the area, making it the productive shellfishing area it once was, thereby increasing its economic and recreational value.

Lecture Series Centered Around
Coastal Management Decisions Theme

The WHOI Sea Grant 1996 "Oceans Alive" lecture series focused on the theme "Coastal Management Decisions" and featured panel discussions - rather than individual presenters - made up of scientists, resource managers, regulatory officials, and citizens. The new approach to the "Oceans Alive" series proved to be very popular and encouraged lively information exchange among panelists and attendees. Topics in this year's series included "Student Science in Falmouth," featuring high school students from Falmouth, Mass., discussing their winning science fair projects; "Coastal Ponds: Management and Effects of Nutrient Inputs"; "Predicting Shoreline Change: Where Are We? Where Are We Going?"; and "Aquaculture in the Coastal Zone: Private Leases in Public Waters." Each of the presentations was videotaped and copies of the VHS tapes may be borrowed ($3, one-week loan period), or purchased ($10 each, includes postage) by calling WHOI Sea Grant, (508) 289-2398 or sending a request via e-mail to seagrant@whoi.edu.

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