Not a fish bowl

The $20 million research and development bond going to Maine voters Nov. 3 breaks down like this: $13.5 million in seed capital for the University of Maine System; $4.5 million in start-up funds for the private sector, channeled through the Maine Science and Technology Foundation; and $2 million in misconceptions.

Actually, that $2 million is for half of the cost of establishing a Gulf of Maine Aquarium Research Facility in Portland. And therein lies the rub. The operative term is “research facility,” yet the erroneous impression persists, created by those who place the emphasis on “aquarium,” that money for science will be used for a tourist attraction in a city already chock-full of attractions.

It simply is not true. While it is true that the Gulf of Maine Aquarium is trying to raise $42 million to build an exhibition center, the financing of that project is entirely separate from the research facility and the desirability of giving the public a peek at the underwater environment has nothing to do with the dire need for fishermen, resource managers and scientists to better understand it. The $2 million for the research facility will not be spent until the $2 million match is raised and in no way depends upon the construction of an enormous fish bowl.

The aquarium has existed since 1968 without a real physical presence, but it has long been a extremely valuable collection and distribution center for information about the fresh and salt water worlds. Its web site is rated as one of the best of its kind and should be a bookmark on every science classroom browser. An exhibition center would attract an estimated 700,000 visitors a year. If all those tourists, inquisitive natives and busloads of pupils saw the importance of the applied research going on next door, so much the better.

Maine, as everyone who’s been paying attention knows by now, ranks 49th among the states in its investment in research and development, and its fragile economy shows it. It has been well established that every dollar a state spends to boost its R&D capacity generates $3 to $4 in federal and private-sector grants. R&D gives states the ability to chart their own futures, to not be entirely at the mercy of external forces, to give workers in declining industries a fresh start, to provide today’s children with a future close to home. Maine desperately need all those things.

But before Maine can have those things, its people — including its lawmakers — must realize that R&D is not arcane, academic navel-gazing, but the discovery of knowledge that creates new business opportunities and enhances existing ones. Yes, it would be better if R&D support, which should be on-going, were funded through the on-going state budget, but lawmakers so far have lacked the courage to do so. This bond proposal is the public’s opportunity to lead the way.

The combination of a research facility with the popular appeal of an aquarium is a natural and this research facility proposal is solid. It includes not just the marine environment, but the lakes and streams as well. This should be of particular interest to those who are concerned about the status of Maine’s inland recreational sport fishery. That the Gulf of Maine Aquarium has raised $150,000 from various sources and has brought fishermen, regulators and scientists together for a much-needed survey of herring stocks shows it is able to back up its claims that it can raise money, that it can bring often adversarial groups together to work toward a common goal and that it is not interested in duplicating research being done elsewhere. Even without the bond money, the aquarium already is assisting in biotechnology research that has the potential to derive from the ocean products of substantial human benefit.

Despite this, the Gulf of Maine Aquarium Research Facility part of the R&D bond is seen as the weak link, as the anchor that could drag the whole thing down. A recent poll commissioned by the bond promoters showed reasonably strong public support for the UMaine and Science and Technology components, but high negatives for the Aquarium portion. So high, in fact, that the pollster recommended downplaying its existence.

That would be a mistake. With this bond proposal, Maine voters are being asked to do something they have not done before — to make a modest yet vital investment in themselves. The last thing this venture into unfamiliar terrain needs the perception that something is being hidden. And there simply is no reason for it. Maine’s future is inextricably tied to its fresh and salt-water resources and this Gulf of Maine Aquarium Research Facility can be an important part of securing that future. It doesn’t need to be downplayed; it just needs to be explained.