LUMCON News Spring 2008 Volume 8, Number 1 LUMCON Executive Director Receives Gold Medal for Research This summer, Nancy N. Rabalais, LUMCON’s executive director, received two prestigious environmental research awards, the the National Water Research Institute's (NWRI) Athalie Richardson Irvine Clarke Prize and the Ruth Patrick Award from the Ameri- can Society for Limnology and Oceanography (ASLO). In July, Rabalais became the fifteenth laureate of the NWRI’s Clarke Prize, one of the most prestigious awards in the world as determined by the International Congress of Distinguished Awards. Rabalais travelled to Huntington Beach, CA to accept the Clarke Prize for her 25 years of research on human-induced changes in water quality, particularly the long-term environmen- tal impacts of excess nutrients on marine ecosystems. The NWRI established the Clarke Prize in 1993 in honor of the late Athalie Richardson Irvine Clarke and her vision to recognize the vital importance of water and promote better water science and technology. In 1991, Clarke co-founded NWRI along with her daughter Joan Irvine Smith, who presented the award to Dr. Rabalais. Clarke said that she believed that “Nothing is more im- portant than the careful stewardship and development of our water resources.” The Huntington Beach Hilton was the setting for the ceremony where LUMCON Executive Director Nancy Rabalais received her Each year NWRI holds a formal ceremony in which Smith pres- Clarke Prize. Rabalais stands next to the memorial for her prize’s namesake. ents a gold medallion and the award of the $50,000 prize.In re- ceipt of the award, Rabalais presented a lecture entitled basic aquatic science principles to the identification, analysis “Ecosystem Science Informs Sound Policy… or Does It?” where and/or solution of important environmental problems. she discussed the effects of hypoxia and harmful algal blooms in Rabalais accepted the Ruth Patrick Award for her accomplish- the Gulf of Mexico and other coastal waters nationwide. During ments in Marine Science at the 2008 ASLO Summer Meeting in the ceremony, Rabalais thanked her family members, collabora- St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada. Former LUMCON Director tors and others who helped make her research possible, and as Don Boesch, who is currently with the University of Maryland's she accepted the $50,000 prize, she noted, “This check is not Center for Environmental Science, nominated Rabalais for the made out to me but to LUMCON for continued research.” award. Boesch believes Rabalais deserves recognition because Less than a month before, in June, Rabalais was awarded the “[she] has embodied the spirit of Dr. Ruth Patrick… achieving Ruth Patrick Award from the American Society of Limnology and outstanding accomplishments in the application of diverse scien- Oceanography. This professional organization has worked to pro- tific principles toward the identification, analysis, and solution of vide for the needs of aquatic science researchers for over 50 one of the most significant environmental problems in aquatic en- years. The society initiated the Ruth Patrick Award in 1989 to vironments – the dramatic expansion of hypoxia in coastal waters honor outstanding research by a scientist in the application of during the latter part of the 20th century.” A Publication by the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium Message from the Executive Director Dr. Nancy N. Rabalais June 14, 2008 The ability to garner funds for science and higher education has suffered in the last several years and the future remains bleak. It is even more apparent this fiscal year and the next when National Science Foundation researchers are being asked to reduce their budg- ets by 40%, which makes getting the work done only marginal. For critical research in the Gulf of Mexico concerning hypoxia (low oxygen), researchers are being asked to ‘defray’ up to 50% of their funding so that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Adminis- tration can keep the critical program functioning. Calls for proposals for Ecology of Harmful Blooms (ECOHAB), and invasive species in the Great Lakes, while rich in ideas, resulted in no funded projects due to lack of money. Along with funds for the research, vessel support for the University National Oceanographic Laboratory System (UNOLS) ships are also reduced. The future of vessel replacement and keeping the UNOLS existing fleet afloat as part of the marine science infrastruc- ture is threatened. The R/V Pelican, LUMCON’s UNOLS vessel, is heavily utilized and will be a strong member of the fleet into the future, but a new regional class vessel for the Gulf of Mexico becomes a more distant vision. Important programs, such as Ocean Drilling that provides some of the best earth science globally and the Integrated Ocean Observing System that provides critical ocean parameters to the public for science investigations, are also facing unknown funding futures. Higher education in Louisiana’s House Bill 1, at the time of this writing, has been stalemated as compared to last year’s State support that indicated a promising future. Tuition and fees are seen as remedies, but this does not help LUMCON or the Louisiana State Uni- versity (LSU) Pennington Biomedical Research Center because they are not collecting tuition for the courses they provide. Not all is bleak as LUMCON administers the NOAA Coastal Restoration through En- hanced Science and Technology (CREST) program. The CREST program received no additional funding in FY07, but was awarded $1,442,000 in FY08 due to the efforts of the CREST program office and Senator Mary Landrieu. CREST provided $10,000 each to the member institutions to fund graduate and, in some cases, undergraduate students for projects relevant to the program. Their creativity in coastal research projects was highlighted at a symposium in New Orleans in March 2008. Our legislators and congressional leaders with the help of marine scientists on an individual basis and through the Consortium on Ocean Leadership (COL) continue to work for more coastal research funds. I had the opportunity and privilege to introduce Senator Mary Landrieu at the COL Public Policy Forum on Capitol Hill. She touched upon many areas of interest for coastal Louisiana—land loss and coastal restoration efforts, return of Federal oil-and-gas production revenues for coastal restoration, the Mississippi River and its importance to the economy of Louisiana and its potential to be a threat in the form of offshore low dissolved oxygen, or ‘The Dead Zone.’ I have followed up with with her staff on funding for extramural, peer-reviewed research in NOAA’s Sponsored Coastal Ocean Re- search program and the level of funding necessary to carry that program forward. I have also followed up on the pending reauthorization of the Harmful Algal Bloom and Hypoxia Research and Control Act (HABHRCA) and its appropriations, and continued Congressional sup- port for the CREST program. Senator David Vitter’s office is also in- volved with the HABHRCA reauthorization, as is Senator Nelson of Florida. This program will continue to fund research, control, and miti- gation programs for two important environmental issues in the Gulf of Mexico, harmful algal blooms and hypoxia. Just elected to a 3-year term as a member of the Board of Trustees beginning in May 2008, I will con- tinue as Membership Chair and to serve COL. Keeping Louisiana and the Gulf of Mexico in the conversation of federal funding initiatives is LUMCON’s constant goal. Dr. Nancy Rabalais, Senator Mary Landrieu, and Dr. Bob Gagosian, President of COL and former Director of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. LUMCON News Vol. 8, No. 1 Page 2 Intern Instructs 6th Graders on Methods for Monitoring the Environment Anxiously, forty 6th grade students from Legion Park Middle tion and chose Legion Park School for participation. These School of Houma, LA unloaded a yellow bus and entered the Houma students were brought to LUMCON and shown LUMCON Marine Center. They are hurried into the audito- LUMCON’s Bayouside Classroom methods of collecting rium where they were able to exchange presentations and find- water samples in the front pond. Later they used these same ings from their research via teleconferencing with Greg Ira, techniques to test samples Nicole collected from along Bayou from the Florida Environmental Protection Service, the 7th Terrebonne near the downtown marina. They tested for clarity, grade science class of the Kennedy Middle School of St. Pe- acidic qualities, temperature and the amount of oxygen in the tersburg, FL and the West Oso Junior High School at the Texas samples. State Aquarium in Corpus Christi, TX. Little do they know that “What they loved the most was that they got to play with the this project began long before they were selected for participa- chemicals, in particularly the ones for dissolved oxygen. This tion. A grant written by Ira needed an instructor for their Gulf test shows how much oxygen is in the water,” Broussard said. of Mexico Literacy Project. EPS informed LUMCON of their The students learned how to find pH and conductivity with an search and the answer was Nicole Broussard, a graduate stu- X-stick, how to properly take the temperature of the water and dent attending Nicholls State University studying for her Mas- the use of the thermometer, and how to check the clarity using ters in Marine and Environmental Biology and working a turbidity tube. Another tool called a refractometer was also part-time at LUMCON in the education department. used to measure salinity “Water quality is important because Broussard was off to Tallahassee, FL training in the Wakulla we would want to know what kind of water we drink and Springs State Park, also known as the Edward Ball State Park. where it comes from and the chemical qualities of water that Part of the training was how to interact with under served and contributes to human health in a positive way,” the presenta- under represented students.