MERI grant to fund water-quality lab

BLUE HILL – The Marine Environmental Research Institute is in the process of expanding its research capabilities, thanks to a recent $100,000 grant.

The funds will be used to create a new water chemistry laboratory at its headquarters on Main Street in Blue Hill.

The grant comes from a family foundation, which chose to remain anonymous, and was awarded earlier this month.

MERI already has begun construction to expand an existing laboratory area located on the bottom floor of its Main Street building.

The water chemistry laboratory will include five separate areas, including a marine mammal clinic, which will support the institute’s seal research program.

The grant also will provide funds to purchase needed field and lab equipment, to conduct collaborative studies with other groups to assess the health of local bays, and to hire a research coordinator.

“We’re very excited about this opportunity,” Dr. Susan Shaw, MERI founder and executive director, said Tuesday in a telephone interview. “There are no research labs like this anywhere in the area.

“We anticipate that other groups will use the lab so that we can maximize the information we gather about the coastal waters,” Shaw said.

Founded in 1990, MERI is a nonprofit organization that conducts scientific research and gathers essential data for monitoring the health of the marine environment.

The organization has a staff of 12 full- and part-time employees and works with federal and state agencies along Maine’s coast.

According to Shaw, the new lab and equipment will allow the institute to expand its research efforts in the Blue Hill Bay area and other areas of coastal Maine.

MERI has created a five-year plan for research along the coast, including a “characterization study” of Blue Hill Bay and continued research on coastal seals.

MERI officials hope the grant will attract additional donations to fund this summer’s research agenda as well as the projects in the plan, Shaw said.

“There are a lot of questions unanswered about the Maine coastal waters,” Shaw said, “questions about the [water] quality and the impacts from development, aquaculture, dredging and pesticide runoff.”

In Blue Hill Bay, the questions become more specific, according to Shaw: What is coming into the bay from the streams that feed it? Are there contaminants there? What is the status of the area around Blue Hill’s sewage treatment plan? What is the status of the shellfish population in different areas in the bay?

The new lab facility will help answer some of those questions, Shaw said. MERI’s main efforts will be to conduct a baseline study that will determine the current status of the waters of Blue Hill Bay. That baseline can then be used to determine the impact that various human activities have on water quality, she said.

For example, Shaw noted that Blue Hill Bay and Penobscot Bay have been targeted as potential areas for the development of aquaculture projects, particularly salmon aquaculture. There also has been preliminary discussion of a dredging project within Blue Hill harbor.

“There is really very little information about Maine’s coastal waters. The only way we will be able to measure the impacts is if we establish what the conditions are now,” Shaw said. “We may also find stresses and fragile areas where things should not be happening.”

This research and that of other agencies and organizations working in the area will provide information upon which future decisions about the coastal waters can be made, she said.

Decision-makers will be able to make those decisions “based on facts, and not just on politics or economics,” Shaw said.

The new lab and equipment also will be a resource for college research interns who work at MERI during the summer and for students in local schools

After construction is completed in a few more weeks, the MERI staff will begin setting up the new lab equipment purchased through the grant. Shaw estimated that the lab would be operating by late March.