Thursday, March 31, 2011

Old News.. but Good News... the 2010 Fisheries Cruise

In 2010, a NOAA Fisheries research vessel travelled through the waters of Guam and CNMI carrying scientists and a few students interested in learning about fish populations and habitats of some of the deeper areas associated with coral reefs. A nice overview of what was involved can be found on the cruise blog, which is found here http://fish250.blogspot.com/

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

HB 17-150

So FYI Ya'll, HB 17-150 proposes the re-authorization of using both gill nets as well as SCUBA while fishing. The bill was written by the Honorable Jose Palacios of Precint 1.
Just to get everyone up to speed, there have been management restrictions banning the use of gills nets and "SCUBA Spearfishing" in the CNMI. This bill proposes to abolish those restrictions. Although I have my own views on the subject I would much rather hear the thoughts of others. Please feel free to express your thoughts on the matter.

Laolao Bay's ICON Station Still Pending

After nearly a decade of discussions, strategizing, and justifying, the Laolao Bay CHAMP ICON Station remains tantalizingly 'almost installed.'  After serious progress last summer- permits finalized, site selected and base plate with anchor pins installed, the project remains stalled due to the need for an engineering study and the need to find funding for that study.  NOAA's Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory is continuing to foot the bill, but the US Government's continuing resolution (i.e. still no budget) means spending for special projects remains challenging.

Still, we remain optimistic that the station will finally hit the water this summer. The station currently resides at the commerical port in Saipan and PacIOOS technicians ( who are providing telemetry and some water qualtiy sensors) are working with AOML to make sure that all the pieces will work together when we finally get to the point of installation. 

To read about the ICON program, visit the newly revised: http://www.coral.noaa.gov/
To read about the history of the Laolao Station, visit: http://llbp7-log.blogspot.com/
To read about a (we hope) second ICON station site on Saipan, visit: http://manm1-log.blogspot.com/

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

CNMI MMT on Google Earth

CNMI's Coral Gardens long-term monitoring site is now a feature on Google Earth's "Explore the Ocean" layer. Mousing over the the ocean layer target icon (see the image on left) will trigger a popup window featuring the MMT site.  Rota DEQ's Gary Toves (retired) and PMRI's Peter Houk are featured in the image that provides a brief overview of the MMT's mission and a link to our home page.

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

MMT begins to Blog

We've just transitioned our current events to the Blogger platform to improve our transfer of information about current events. Past events have been migrated to the blog format and can still be accessed. Look for more frequent content updates from now on.