MMS, UAF extend Coastal Marine Institute agreement

The U.S. Minerals Service and the University of Alaska Fairbanks have extended for five years a cooperative agreement that supports University of Alaska scientists conducting marine research related to oil and gas development in Alaska coastal waters.

MMS said it will provide up to $1 million a year to UAF from 2003 through 2009.

“We are pleased to continue our partnership with UAF, and to have their scientists and students involved in gathering the information that we and the state need to understand what is happening offshore,” MMS Regional Director John Goll said in an Oct. 1 statement. “We can take full advantage of their knowledge of Alaska, its marine waters, and the oil and gas industry.”

The Alaska Coastal Marine Institute is administered by the University of Alaska Fairbanks School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences.

In addition to extension of the agreement, MMS said eight new studies were funded to start this year in Cook Inlet, the Beaufort Sea and the Chukchi Sea.

UAF will also hold a workshop on sea ice circulation and modeling.

MMS developed the Coastal Marine Institute concept in 1991 and the Alaska CMI is one of three such institutes in the United States, with the others in California and Louisiana.