Northeast Region

Connecticut Sea Grant
Sea Grant aids local communities in understanding the role of nitrogen on estuarine ecosystems

• Sea Grant researchers, working with colleagues at the University of Rhode Island and Dominion Power, collected multi-year data from local water bodies which can be used to calculate nitrogen loading estimates and monitor changes in nutrient loading, water quality and habitat conditions over time.  
• Town planners and environmental planners can use/adjust the nitrogen loading values to reflect development scenarios and resulting potential changes in nitrogen loading. 
• Community groups (e.g., Friends of Oswegachie Hills and Save the River, Save the Hills) concerned with proposed developments in the Niantic River watershed have used the sampling data and nitrogen load estimates to question the impact of proposed zoning changes on water quality. 

Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sea Grant
Single-point mooring may revolutionize offshore aquaculture

• Most aquaculture cages are moored using an array of anchors and mooring lines radiating out in several directions.  The practice was developed in sheltered water culture environments where the cages need to be fixed over one spot. 
• Applying this technique to offshore operations greatly increases the cost and complexity.
• In a collaboration between the MIT and Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant programs, the advantages of a single-point mooring (SPM) have been demonstrated at the Gulf of Mexico Offshore Aquaculture Consortium site 22-miles off the coast of Mississippi. 
• The SPM is cost-effective and allows the cage to travel in a “watch circle,” greatly reducing the benthic impacts that can occur under a fully stocked cage.

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Sea Grant
Scientists search for faster detection of Harmful Algal Blooms (HABS)

• Blooms of certain HAB species can cause mortality in fish, toxicity in shellfish and problems in marine mammals and humans.  
• The economic effects were estimated at $82 million last year in the U.S. alone.  
• Woods Hole Sea Grant is working to develop an optical fiber-based technology for HAB cell detection.  The sheer number of samples collected is rising sharply each year, as are the processing times and expense.  
• One possible solution:  automated instruments that can detect HAB species remotely.  The results have been successful and consistent.  The technique is working with all three of the target HAB species. 
• This advance would be welcome news for those monitoring HABs worldwide, not to mention local officials.  Though the instrument is not yet ready for deployment in a harsh ocean environment, the scientists hope it will be ready within 5-10 years.

Maine Sea Grant
Sea Grant develops lobster model adopted by Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission

• Lobster is the most valuable fishery to the state of Maine. 
• Maine Sea Grant researchers developed a stock assessment model for lobster that incorporates prior knowledge about the fishery and data from different sources, yielding results that can be used for risk analysis of alternative management strategies. 
• This model is a significant departure from previous stock assessment models used by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission—which assumed constant and known mortality, and did not use cumulative data from the past.

New Hampshire Sea Grant
Sea Grant scientists reveal critical information about mercury

• Mercury contamination in New England is a serious threat to both the environment and human health since this neurotoxin can kill wildlife and damage a human’s brain and nervous system.  According to the Environmental Protection Agency, New Englanders are mainly exposed to mercury by eating contaminated fish or shellfish. 
• Two New Hampshire Sea Grant scientists’ findings suggest that mercury levels in sediments remain elevated, especially in the tidal portion of the Penobscot River, and that marsh grass may be taking up mercury from marsh sediments. 
• In addition, mercury bioaccumulates, building up in the tissues of animals up through the food web.  One study characterized the bioaccumulation and transfer of mercury in interdidal food webs in four different Gulf of Maine sites. 
• According to the research, patterns of mercury bioaccumulation and transfer vary depending on the feeding strategies of the organisms in question and on the degree of contamination at each site.  This initial research has been continued through a competitive grant from the Department of Defense.

New York Sea Grant
Sea Grant and partners create "Dive the Seaway Trail" to attract divers to Great Lakes

• Scuba divers represent an economic impact of more than $108 million to New York's Great Lakes region.  
• The fresh waters of the St. Lawrence River, Lake Ontario, Niagara River and Lake Erie are filled with shipwrecks, “sealife,” and rock formations decorated with freshwater sponge. 
• This largely undiscovered underwater destination is now being brought to divers’ attention by “Dive the Seaway Trail,” a project of New York Sea Grant and Seaway Trail, Inc.  
• The project includes development of a series of dive sites that are marked, buoyed and maintained by community-based stewards along the St. Lawrence River, Lake Ontario, Niagara River and Lake Erie.  The sites, featured on a new website, are accessed via the Seaway Trail, one of America's Byways and a National Recreation Trail. 
• The 518-mile Seaway Trail is a federally-designated America's Byway (Federal Highway Administration designation) and a National Recreation Trail (National Parks Service designation).  To learn more about diving the Seaway Trail, visit www.seawaytrail.com

Rhode Island Sea Grant
Researchers explore human uses of Narragansett Bay

• With plans for marina development, expansion and other redevelopment along Narragansett Bay's urban shorelines, Bay planning has taken on increased urgency.
• Rhode Island Sea Grant researchers spent the summer surveying uses of the Bay from the vantage point of a 35-foot University of Rhode Island research vessel, the Hope Hudner.
• Early observations include an indication that human use of Bay shorelines is inversely proportional to the wealth of the area.
• Some uses along urban shorelines, such as fishing from shore, are taking place on private commercial property—perhaps without the owner's knowledge.  This may indicate a greater need for public access sites in those areas.  
• Survey data will be processed in the fall, and used to inform Bay decision making through Rhode Island Sea Grant's Sustainable Coastal Communities and Ecosystems Extension program.  Early findings of this research will be published in the upcoming fall/winter issue of 41°N: A Publication of Rhode Island Sea Grant and the URI Coastal Institute. 41°N is on-line at: http://seagrant.gso.uri.edu/41N/index.html