NOAA Sea Grant is pleased to announce $27 million in projects that will address the prevention and removal of debris in marine and Great Lakes environments throughout the U.S. Using Sea Grant’s partnered approach to bring science together with communities for solutions that work, the projects will support transformational research and the creation of local coalitions to address urgent marine debris prevention and removal needs.
 

Through a joint competition with the U.S. Coastal Research Program (USCRP), ten new projects were selected for a total of $3.9 million in funding to translate research into application for communities. Additionally, Sea Grant programs across the nation received an additional total of $4.2 million in NOAA Sea Grant funds to increase local capacity, engagement, research, and implementation for addressing resilience challenges. 

Contaminants of emerging concern, like pharmaceuticals, cleaning products and microfibers, pose risks to the Nation’s drinking waters and aquatic life, but they are often excluded from monitoring programs and published water quality standards. Two new projects recently funded by Sea Grant aim to enhance research and monitoring efforts for this class of chemicals and materials while strengthening strategies to reduce their presence in aquatic environments.
 

The National Sea Grant College Program has announced that a regional collaborative of Sea Grant fisheries extension specialists, university scientists and fisheries managers will receive $2.4 million to develop and implement extension and outreach programming related to data and information from three large research projects focused on estimating the number of reef fish in the South Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico.
 

NOAA’s National Sea Grant College Program and Office of Sustainable Fisheries awarded approximately $900,000 of FY21 federal funds to support projects that will initiate “Food from the Sea'' career development programs. With these funds, Sea Grant programs and partners will work collaboratively with members of the fishing industry to identify training needs and develop updated and/or new resources and programming to address those needs.