Woods Hole gets $97.7m US grant
Ocean observation system to be built
A team led by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution has won a $97.7 million research grant from the National Science Foundation to build an ocean observation system of buoys and robotic underwater vehicles off Cape Cod.
The award, which will be matched by a $10 million state grant, is the largest in the institution's history and comes nearly a year after Woods Hole was forced to cut jobs because of a falloff in federal money.
The institution will lead a team that includes the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California at San Diego and the College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences at Oregon State University. They will build and operate the coastal and global components of the National Science Foundation's $331 million Ocean Observatories Initiative.
The observation system will use sensing and measuring devices and virtual observatories that researchers will be able to control remotely.
Data from the system should allow researchers to improve the accuracy of weather forecasts, better monitor commercial fisheries and algae blooms that cause red tide, and more closely track the effects of climate change.
The project will include about a dozen robotic vehicles and six multimillion-dollar buoys, many of them positioned in high latitudes where it is difficult to station ships, said Steve Bohlen, president of Joint Oceanographic Institutions, a consortium based in Washington, D.C.
Construction will begin next summer and should be completed in 2013, he said.
"This is revolutionary, because it allows us to observe the ocean on a second-by-second basis at different scales, from the coastal environment to the global," Bohlen said. "We've never done that before. This is the first element for tracking the weather system of the ocean."
State officials will formally announce the award today in Woods Hole.
The institution, famous for helping find the wreck of the Titanic and new life forms, has struggled in recent years as federal money for basic research has grown slowly.
In 2000, for example, Woods Hole received grants for three of eight proposals. Last year, its success rate dropped to one in eight.
The falloff in grants has led the research center to cut jobs. In the fall, Woods Hole cut 10 administrative and support positions.
"At a time of challenging federal funding for basic research, this is reassurance at a national level of a commitment to make this country cutting edge in ocean-observing technology," said Bob Weller, a senior scientist at Woods Hole.
"To the institution, it's an affirmation of our leading role in ocean science. . . . People don't realize how challenging ocean observations are."
State officials said they hoped the infusion of federal cash will add jobs and hundreds of millions of dollars to the state's economy.
"The economic and environmental impact of this project is impressive," Senate President Therese Murray said in a statement.
"With this grant, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute will advance its groundbreaking research on the evolution, impact, and importance of our oceans."
The governor's office declined to comment.
In a separate statement, Senator Edward M. Kennedy called the grant a "tremendous accomplishment" for Woods Hole.
"I'm thrilled that NSF continues to recognize that this important research is best conducted right here on Cape Cod, and I look forward to the results," Kennedy said.
Woods Hole is one of the largest employers in Southeastern Massachusetts, with 370 scientific and technical staff members, including 80 people in its applied ocean physics and engineering department.
It will share its research with other local institutions, including the Dartmouth, Amherst, and Boston campuses of the University of Massachusetts; MIT; 
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