Narragansett Bay Commission
Awards EMPACT Grant to URI Graduate School
of Oceanography
for Bay Project
Narragansett, R.I. -- January 3, 2001
-- Rhode Island's Narragansett Bay
Commission (NBC) recently awarded URI
Graduate School of Oceanography (GSO)
chemical oceanographer
Dana
Kester $78,260 to establish water
quality monitoring stations in the urban
area of Providence.
Funding for the grant was provided to
the NBC under the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency Environmental Monitoring
for Public Access and Community Tracking
(EMPACT) Program, a presidential
initiative to provide time-relevant
environmental information in major
metropolitan areas of the U.S.
Kester's grant will establish a
shore-based monitoring system in the
Seekonk River and a moored buoy system in
the Providence River. These systems will
be added to three systems that Kester has
already in place, including a shore-based
station at the URI Narragansett Bay Campus
and two moored buoys located in central
Narragansett Bay and in the upper bay,
just south of the Providence River. Every
15 minutes the stations measure water
temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen,
pH, and chlorophyll fluorescence. The data
collected from the systems is analyzed,
interpreted, and distributed by scientists
at GSO.
"These new systems provided by the
EMPACT project will extend our ability to
track changes in the waters of the bay,"
said Kester, a resident of Narragansett.
"Data will be transmitted ashore every 15
minutes and become available to the public
and other users in nearly real-time. These
systems will be operational in March
2001."
The EMPACT project will provide the
public with new types of information about
water quality and about the processes that
affect it. The information gained through
this project will be made available to
management and regulatory agencies, as
well as to non-governmental organizations
and public and private educational
institutions.
Contact:
Lisa
Cugini, 874-6642
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