R.I. Sea Grant invested in protecting health of bay

LIFE AT SEA: Barry A. Costa-Pierce, director of the Rhode Island Sea Grant College Program, said the implementation of the Special Area Management Plan is among the most immediate priorities of the program. / PBN PHOTO/CATIA CUEN
LIFE AT SEA: Barry A. Costa-Pierce, director of the Rhode Island Sea Grant College Program, said the implementation of the Special Area Management Plan is among the most immediate priorities of the program. / PBN PHOTO/CATIA CUEN

Barry A. Costa-Pierce is the director of the Rhode Island Sea Grant program and a professor at the University of Rhode Island. He has held both positions since 2001.
On March 9, U.S. Sens. Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse announced that URI will receive $2.06 million from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Sea Grant College Program. The funds will be used by Rhode Island’s program to conduct research, education and outreach throughout the state.
Costa-Pierce speaks about the sea-grant program and its new funding.

PBN: What is the relationship between Sea Grant and the URI Bay Campus, the Graduate School of Oceanography?
COSTA-PIERCE: PIERCE: There are 32 Sea Grant programs, one in each coastal and Great Lake state, as well as Puerto Rico and Guam. The university is our host. Our administrative offices operate out of the Graduate School of Oceanography.

PBN: In general, what kind of topics does R.I. Sea Grant cover?
COSTA-PIERCE: PIERCE: Way back when, it used to only be about fisheries and then later on aquaculture. Now we work on sustainable coastal communities, hazard resilience, adaptation to sea-level rise, working waterfronts and ports and harbors. We served as a backstop for the entire state effort on coastal and marine planning, which led to the pioneering ocean Special Area Management Plan. It’s a very diverse interest. We tackle almost all of the coastal and resource-management issues in this political jurisdiction and in New England.

PBN: Is this accomplished by research, administration or both?
COSTA-PIERCE: PIERCE: We choose applied research for direct public benefit. We convene a large senior advisory council twice each year and throughout the year we hold many meetings with marine-ocean-coastal stakeholders. They tell us what the priorities are, then we [put in place] money for research, outreach extension and education to help meet the needs of the identified priorities as defined by the stakeholders. Not only must we fund great research but it must be connected, it must have an applied side to it.

PBN: How do you decide what projects will be funded?
COSTA-PIERCE: PIERCE: There are three parts to that. Once every two years we put out a competitive request for proposals throughout the state. Then we bring in the best people from outside our jurisdiction who go through them; it’s a rigorous procedure. Then we select competitive proposals. We receive more than we can fund so we are always picking the crème-de-la-crème.
Then we have a discretionary pot, which we call program development. It allows investigators to come to us at any time with ideas that might lead to bigger money that wouldn’t necessarily be obtained from Sea Grant but from any source; private, philanthropic or federal.
We also have a small foundation where we are able to put some seed money behind a project to see if we can leverage more funding.

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PBN: What are some of Sea Grant’s immediate priorities?
COSTA-PIERCE: PIERCE: There is the implementation of the Special Area Management Plan. Someday there’s going to be offshore renewable energy in the state’s waters, in the “area of mutual interest” with Massachusetts. There is still a large management process with all of the stakeholders. That’s a very large priority.
Another project deals with turning down the tap on nutrients in Narragansett Bay. As the [Narragansett Bay Commission’s] combined sewer-overflow project comes on line, the big question is how it is going to affect the bay. We have a very large investment in providing science-based information to help the state answer that question. Fisheries and shellfish managers for both fishing and aquaculture are very concerned about that. On the other side is the ecological economics of the upper bay and how that is going to change as we improve the environment; opening up the beaches, the economic return on investment and the improved environment.
We are also spending time on the research results that show why the upper bay is occasionally hypoxic and there have been fish kills. … There is also a movement throughout the state for a safe and sustainable seafood supply.
There are also ports and harbor issues; the future of Quonset and planning for the Port of Providence. Most of the economy in America moves through water, so the future of the country’s marine highways and getting Providence and Quonset into those highways is a big priority.
Tourism is a big concern, so we are working intensely with Newport to look at a plan to better align ship visits with the many partners that derive economic development from those visits. There is also a plan for the Newport harbor walk and coastal tourism.

PBN: The grant you just received is a matching grant. Do you have the match in hand?
COSTA-PIERCE: PIERCE: Yes. For every $2 we receive there has to be another dollar coming from the partnership. In our case, URI contributed to our share, and some money is being contributed by the state, from the General Assembly, through URI.

PBN: Why do you work at Sea Grant?
COSTA-PIERCE: PIERCE: We affect lives, businesses and communities. We support decision-makers. At the state and local levels they have a very tough job. What I love is taking the information we gather from our programs and translating it in a way that makes it understandable. •

INTERVIEW
Barry A.
Costa-Pierce

POSITION: Director, Rhode Island Sea Grant College Program
BACKGROUND: Barry A. Costa-Pierce is a renowned expert in a variety of aquatic disciplines. He remains active in research and teaching, and has over 100 publications to his credit, including 15 edited books. He is also an accomplished professional speaker and his work has been recognized with numerous awards and appointments. Prior to R.I. Sea Grant, he has worked in over 20 nations in Asia-Pacific, Africa, Latin America and South America on a wide range of environmental issues. He has been affiliated with Bemidji State University, California State Polytechnic University at Pomona, the University of California at Irvine and the Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Consortium.
EDUCATION: B.A., zoology, Drew University, 1976; M.S., zoology, University of Vermont, 1980; Ph.D., oceanography, University of Hawaii, 1984
FIRST JOB: Immigrant farm worker at age 8 in Dighton/Berkley, Mass.
RESIDENCE: South Kingstown
AGE: 57

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