Features

CICEET at Work: Solving Real Problems

UNH is an ideal hub for estuarine studies, according to university president Joan Leitzel. "We have a proven track record in the areas of marine biology, ocean science, and ocean engineering," she says. "Building on research already underway, the university can become a national center for improving our estuaries."

During its first year, the institute is supporting 15 UNH research projects. Each one is devoted to developing practical ways to protect threatened estuaries. When Short completes his eelgrass Nutrient Pollution Index (NPI), for example, a new monitoring tool will be available to estuarine reserve managers across the nation.

Associate Professors Nancy Kinner, with red hat, and Stephen Jones, to her left, work with students (from left) Geoffrey Grant, Ian Smith, Fabio Roldman, and Joshua MacCulloch in Maine's Fore River Creek salt marsh. Kinner, Jones and Tom Ballestero are the principal investigators of a project to restore salt marshes after a major oil spill in Portland, Maine.

Another CICEET research team is evaluating town systems for dealing with stormwater runoff, one of the primary sources of fecal bacteria contamination in coastal waters. At a local wastewater treatment plant, an innovative membrane system for treating wastewater is in the pilot stage. In the lab, a new DNA-specific method is being developed for detecting pathogens in shellfish. Coastal maps and an institute Web site will make critical research findings available for decision makers.

"CICEET will put UNH at the forefront of developing new environmental technologies to help preserve Great Bay and other critical estuaries," says Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH), who spearheaded efforts to secure federal funding.

During its second year, the institute will also support research at other universities. Grants are awarded with an emphasis on transferablility. "The goal is to produce information that will be useful around the country," says Rich Langan, manager of UNH's Jackson Estuarine Research Laboratory and UNH's acting CICEET co-director. "We're looking for information that will have a measurable, positive impact."

Fourth-graders from Portsmouth's New Franklin School help spread the word by painting "don't dump" signs by storm drains that lead directly into North Mill Pond.

During the institute's first proposal review last spring, Langan collected comments on 69 proposals from 180 peer reviewers. Finalists were then subject to an intensive 15-member review panel. "If you want a good product, you need good input," says Langan. "Strong research is what will make CICEET successful over the long-term." And rigorous review by scientists across the country reinforces the broad scope of the institute, encouraging research in other Estuarine Reserves.

Jim Malley views this "cross-country goal" as one of the institute's main strengths. "I've never met a town that wants to be the first to try a new technology," says the professor of civil engineering, who specializes in water treatment. During the next three years, his innovative pulsed-ultraviolet wastewater treatment project will be tested in the Chesapeake Bay and the Hudson River, as well as in Great Bay. "At the end of the project, if we do well in several places, towns and regulatory folks will have a lot more comfort in using this technology."

For now, Malley and his students are testing pulsed-ultraviolet treatment in the lab--the only one in the world where the method is being used on wastewater. Their goal, using bursts of intense light, is the destruction of the minute popcorn kernel-shaped microorganism known as Cryptosporidium, a major cause of waterborne disease outbreaks in the United States. Malley expects this CICEET project will lead to a new wastewater treatment technology that will be more effective, less hazardous, and more economical than traditional chlorine disinfection.

"What's special about CICEET is its problem-solving nature," says NOAA's McGilvray. "We're pushing ourselves to invest in technologies and techniques that will solve very real estuarine problems."

Research in Action

It has been two years since a tanker rammed into the pilings of the Portland Bridge in Portland, Maine, sending 170,000 gallons of oil into the Fore River. Today the Fore River Creek is no longer coated with slimy black muck. Grass is growing, but coverage is sparse, and globules of oil are still visible on the surface of the salt water that pools among the roots.

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