ORONO – A federal plan to invest $25 million in marine aquaculture research at the University of Maine had its initial inspiration in activities in landlocked West Virginia.

The proposal, which already has received a $2.5 million planning grant, would be the biggest federal investment in the campus in history, and a major coup in the state’s effort to boost its research and development.

In November 1998, the aquaculture program leader in the federal Agriculture Research Service spoke at a conference in Rockport. Hank Parker, a Freeport native, told the crowd about a new ARS freshwater aquaculture research center in West Virginia.

Mike Hastings, organizer of the conference, remembers that during Parker’s presentation someone turned to him and whispered, “Why isn’t this happening in Maine?”

“After the speech, I said to Parker that some people think there should be a similar aquaculture research facility here,” recalled Hastings, who is head of the Aquaculture Innovation Center, a liaison between university researchers and the state’s aquaculture industry.

If West Virginia had a facility, why couldn’t Maine have one, especially given the state is one of the four biggest aquaculture states in the nation, and No. 1 in marine aquaculture, primarily because of the salmon farms in Hancock and Washington counties. Parker’s speech triggered “a lot of talk about how a cold-water, marine research center was needed in Maine,” said Hastings.

UM officials talked among themselves, and then they talked to members of the state’s congressional delegation. Members led by Sen. Olympia Snowe talked to officials at Parker’s agency, a branch of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. To complete the circle of conversations, the ARS, which is headed by Floyd Horan, a UM graduate, contacted the university.

Word about the plan, which still must receive final funding approval from Congress, came out last month at a meeting of the University of Maine System board of trustees. The group approved a $1-a-year lease agreement with the federal government for land for a new building located near the Sawyer Environmental Science Building on the south end of campus.

The federal facility would focus on cold-water, marine, finfish aquaculture. That includes salmon, cod, haddock and, especially, halibut, which scientists are eyeing as a new source.

The bulk of the $25 million would be used to build a center on the Orono campus that would house 14 ARS scientists, 40-plus staff members, normal research labs as well as wet labs.

Initially, a half dozen UM faculty members could take up residence in the center, because the ARS would not fill the building immediately, said Bruce Wiersma, dean of the College of Natural Sciences, Agriculture and Forestry.

The center eventually would have annual operating expenses, including payroll, of roughly $5 million, which would be covered by the federal government.

A portion of the construction money would be used to upgrade the fish hatchery the university owns in Franklin. The bulk of research activity would occur in the facility’s industrial-size tanks.

Jake Ward, director of the Department of Industrial Cooperation at UM and head of the hatchery, said ARS’ proposed research would mesh well with the university’s work.

While UM scientists are going to use the hatchery to study salmon genetics and the potential for raising haddock and halibut, Ward said, ARS wants to work on the immediate problems facing the industry today.

These include preventing and curing outbreaks of infectious salmon anemia, improving pumps and piping, and figuring out how best to turn fish food into pounds of flesh.

This year’s federal budget contains $2.5 million for designing the Orono building and the Franklin improvements. Maine’s congressional delegation intends to put $25 million for construction into next year’s federal budget plan, now being drafted.

Finfish aquaculture research at the university is conducted in a building once used for studying poultry. Many of UM’s aquaculture scientists used to study chickens.

Linda Kling studied chicken nutrition there. Today she studies what fish eat.

“In 1989, we made a decision to phase out of poultry because the industry was not as prevalent in Maine as it was,” Kling recalled. “We wanted to aid our emerging aquaculture industry.”

While there are differences between fish and poultry, she said, “they are more alike than they are different.”

The place that housed poultry is now the site of her aquaculture research. “It’s still a chicken house, but where we’re raising fish is quite nice,” she said.

The research service has seven aquaculture centers around the country. Most, such as the one in West Virginia, focus on freshwater species, usually trout and catfish.

Catfish dominate U.S. aquaculture sales. Mississippi annually sells more than $290 million in farm-raised fish, almost entirely catfish. Mississippi’s total is more than triple that of the second-highest state.

Maine has the fourth-highest aquaculture sales in dollar terms, selling nearly $67 million worth of aquaculture produce – mostly salmon – a year, according to the Agriculture Department.

UM officials cited a variety of reasons the school would be a very palatable site for federal investment.

Dan Dwyer, UM’s vice president for research, thinks the way that the school works closely with commercial aquaculture growers makes it attractive.

“We don’t just do pie-in-the-sky research,” Dwyer said. “We’re very excited about working in an area that could mean so much for Down East Maine.”

Kling agreed: “It’s not just science for the sake of science. It’s science to spur economic development in the coastal counties of Maine. We’re trying to make the state’s R&D investment pay off.”

A state investment of $10 million in research and development two years ago “sent a message that Maine would be supportive of research,” according to Wiersma, the agriculture dean.

Before the state funding, $4.5 million from the National Science Foundation, spread over five years beginning in 1996, let the university strengthen its aquaculture research capabilities, he added.

And the purchase at auction of the commercial hatchery in Franklin with some of that state money added a crucial element. In October 1999, the university bought it for $400,000, far less than its appraised value of more than $3 million.

The facility is large enough for commercial-scale demonstrations, and because of the way it is designed, researchers can control variables, such as salinity and water temperature, Hastings said. It is also less than an hour’s drive from Orono.

With the $2.5 million in this year’s federal budget, UM and ARS officials are designing the Orono building and planning the Franklin upgrades.

Despite all the reasoning put forward by UM officials, Hank Parker of the ARS is quick to point out that “this is a congressional initiative.”

The ARS’ role is to make sure that whatever Congress and the president decide is done in a top-notch way, he said. “We’re not driving the process, we’re swept up in it. We cannot initiate these kinds of things.”

In West Virginia’s case, its senior U.S. senator, Robert Byrd, exploited what Appalachia had and needed, Parker said. What is noteworthy in the Maine case is the remarkable strength of interest shown by those advocating the project, he said.

Maine’s congressional delegation is well positioned to ensure that the $25 million in capital funding comes through.

Sen. Snowe, a Republican, is chairwoman of the Senate subcommittee that oversees fisheries and oceans.

Rep. John Baldacci, a Democrat, is a member of the House Agriculture Committee.

The delegation will ask budget drafters to include the money either in full or spread over a few years.

With the $2.5 million already in hand, it is likely that the delegation will get the subsequent funding, said Dave Lackey, Snowe’s spokesman.