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Fred Short wields a wicked hook. Bending across the port side of his skiff, one early morning in May, he peers into the murky depths and digs around to see what he can dredge up. A few skillful twists of his long-handled tool and up comes a dripping green mass. Short eyes the limp eelgrass, spreading the stalks with practiced fingers. He pauses when he finds what he's looking for--the "flower." Bright in the morning light, the neat diagonal pattern of seeds stretches only an inch or two along one stalk, a tiny emerald zipper in the palm of his hand.

Short has been monitoring this four-acre eelgrass bed for more than 10 years. He has spent hours here, and at about a dozen other sites in New Hampshire's Great Bay, hunched over the side of a boat fishing for grass most people have never heard of. Why does he do it? "Eelgrass is a pollution sentinel," says the University of New Hampshire's research associate professor of natural resources and marine sciences. Susceptible to certain aspects of water quality, eelgrass--for all its lack of glamour--is a significant indicator of a healthy estuary.

UNH researchers like Short have been at work in Great Bay for years, studying pollution impact, keeping careful watch over one of New Hampshire's most treasured natural resources. Last year, the university's well-established research became the foundation for a new institute to help protect our nation's estuaries. Launched with $5.9 million in federal funding, the Cooperative Institute for Coastal and Estuarine Environmental Technology (CICEET) is forged from an unusual partnership between the university and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

The institute will be housed in UNH's new Environmental Technology Building, scheduled for construction in 1999. But its influence will extend far beyond university walls. Twenty-two National Esturarine Research Reserves, including New Hampshire's Great Bay, will serve as outdoor laboratories for institute research. And scientists across the country, supported by institute funding, will now collaborate more closely, working toward solutions, defending our precious estuary ecosystems.

"The Land Between"
Aptly described by Native Americans as "the land between," estuaries form the fragile fringe between earth and sea. Here where solid land gives way to the steady rhythms of the tides, fresh river waters mix with ocean salt water, creating one of the richest and most significant ecosystems on earth.

New Hampshire's Great Bay provides a banquet for countless birds and wildlife. More than 23 species of threatened or endangered plants and animals depend on these estuary waters, including the bald eagle and peregrin falcon. Striped bass migrate north from the Chesapeake Bay each summer to feed on minnows, silversides, and smelt that live in the estuary. Herons prey on fish and eels. Sandpipers and plovers search the mud for shrimp, small crabs, and amphipods that live in the sediment. Local fishers pull flounder, bluefish, lobsters, and shellfish from these waters. The great whales themselves could not survive without the microscopic nutrients flushed from the salt marshes out to the open sea.

"Estuaries are often called 'nurseries of the sea,'" says Peter Wellenberger, director of the Great Bay Estuarine National Research Reserve. "Their productivity per square foot is just immense. Many of the commercially valuable fish and shellfish in the world have some connection to an estuary."

Humans, too, are drawn to the ocean. More than 50 percent of the US population now lives within 50 miles of the coast. One in every six jobs in the US is marine-related. We love to boat, swim, and fish the coastal waters. We relish fish, lobster, and other shellfish. But our attraction to the coast is also its greatest threat. Chemicals from our lawns and pollutants from our roads run off into the water. We tear up shoreline vegetation with our boats, damage the ocean bottom with fishing equipment, and deplete the fish supply with overfishing. Wastewater treatment plants overflow and oil spills leave behind deadly scum.

While there have been significant improvements in wastewater and sewage treatment methods in the recent decades, estuaries continue to face a looming threat: population pressure. For three decades, the New Hampshire Secoast has grown faster than any other region in the state. Looking ahead, planners predict more of the same. "Think of it this way," says Tom Duffy senior planner for the Office of State Planning. "Portsmouth had about 22,800 residents in 1996. By the year 2020, the Seacoast will have another seven Portsmouths."

"More Portsmouths" mean more septic systems, more cars and trucks, more subdivisions and industry--all of which adds up to more polluted run-off into Great Bay. Other estuaries around the country face the same predicament: whatever happens on land, directly affects what happens in the water. "Our estuaries are in trouble," says Laurie McGilvray, acting NOAA co-director of the institute. "About 45 percent of our coastal waters are threatened or impaired from polluted runoff, which could limit the public's ability to fish, swim, and enjoy the coast now or in the future."

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.

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."

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.

"Usually when there's an oil spill," says Nancy Kinner, professor of civil engineering, "salt marshes just get trashed. Nobody knows what to do with them." In the past, people would cut all the grass--or even bulldoze the whole mess, scouring the marsh as "clean" as possible and leaving behind an exposed stretch of mud to slowly rejuvenate itself.

The UNH team at work in Fore River Creek is in search of a better solution. Kinner is on her knees in the mud, hauling on a slender metal rod. "One, two, three--pull!" she shouts. "And again!" Stephen Jones, research associate professor of natural resources and marine sciences, along with environmental engineering student Josh MacCulloch, are working with her. The trio could be mistaken for participants in some bizarre mud wrestling event--but this is saltmarsh remediation in progress, supported by CICEET funding.

"The idea is to speed the remediation process," says Kinner, between tugs. "We want to see if we can stimulate the soil bacteria and encourage the natural degradation process." Behind her, masters student Geoff Grant grabs a sledge hammer and swings it hard against the end of the metal rod. A few more hits and the pipe is in. He feeds a 20-foot piece of plastic tubing into the hollow pipe, and then the tug-of-war begins. The rod just hammered into the earth is slowly extracted, leaving behind the deeply buried plastic tubing. Teams of three repeat this process 15 times, until one carefully measured plot of saltmarsh has a tangle of white tubes curling out of the earth.

During a long morning of labor, working against the tide, two other plots receive the same treatment, and then the two-year experiment is set to begin. One plot will be fed a steady supply of air, another receives a nitrogen concoction, and the third gets a special nutrient mix. Three high school students from the nearby Waynflete School will come every day throughout the summer to check the air pump and mix the nitrogen stew. They will also help the UNH professors take test samples for analyzing in the lab. "High school students almost never have the chance to participate in original research like this," says Carol Tillerton, chair of Waynflete's science department. "This is a terrific opportunity."

Spreading the Word
Learning about estuaries helps people care enough to protect them. "Our CICEET projects are ways to connect research to the people living in the communities around the bay," says Julia Peterson, extension specialist with the UNH/University of Maine Sea Grant Extension program. Last spring, Peterson led a team of Portsmouth fourth graders armed with bright orange paint in search of storm drains. Next to each one, the graffiti artists left a message painted neatly on the street: "Don't dump here." "It's amazing how many people don't realize that dumping stuff in a storm drain is just the same as walking down to the water's edge and tossing it in," says Peterson. Thanks to a bunch of fourth graders, the word is spreading.

Word is also spreading to tourists in the Seacoast area, who can tune in to AM radio station 16.10 for Great Bay information. Driving across the Route 4 bridge they might learn, for example, that Great Bay is the wintering spot for the largest number of bald eagles in New Hampshire--about 15. Or that samples of estuary sediment reveal a layer of woodchips, evidence of a time when logging was a main industry in the area. "We'll also broadcast information about CICEET projects and dates and times of educational events," says Peterson.

Some of the most significant information comes straight from the bay itself, every 30 minutes, throughout the day and night. "This is the mixing bowl here in the middle," says Langan, "where all the rivers flow into the bay." He is working in the bow of a Southern Skimmer, struggling to attach a shackle to the counterweight that hangs from the bottom of a giant telemetry buoy. Manuevering against the wind and current, Langan and two student assistants edge the buoy forward, then heave it overboard. It bobs away, reduced suddenly to a tiny bathtub toy in the midst of Great Bay.

Researchers have been monitoring water quality at this spot for years, but in the past, someone had to head out every few weeks, retrieve the sonde, or data logger, hook it up to the computer, and download the information. Now, with the new buoy, the sonde can be set afloat for weeks on end, and scientists at Jackson Lab can check their computers for water temperature, dissolved oxygen, pH, and other water quality measurements 24 hours a day. News from the buoy will be available to the public, too, thanks to a CICEET-funded interactive computer exhibit at the Sandy Point Discovery Center in Stratham. "It's what I call 'science in the making,' says reserve manager Peter Wellenberger. "During a big storm, you'll be able to see the salinity in the bay dropping before your eyes."

The mysteries of Great Bay--from its fluctuating salinity to the life that thrives among its eelgrass beds--reveal themselves slowly, unraveling only with painstaking study. Like the research that defines it, UNH's new Cooperative Institute must measure its success incrementally, as the years unfold. But its beginning holds promise--which is good news for our threatened estuaries, "the land between," on which so much depends.

For more information about the Cooperative Institute for Coastal and Estuarine Environmental Technology, check the Web site (another CICEET project-in-progress): http://ekman.sr.unh.edu/idems/

Return to UNH Magazine Fall '98 features