House Appropriations Committee
Education and Economic Development Subcommittee
March 5, 2009

Senate Budget and Taxation Committee
Health, Education, and Human Resources Subcommittee
March 13, 2009

University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science
FY 2010 Operating Budget

Testimony by
Donald F. Boesch, President

It is my honor, once again, to present for the General Assembly's consideration the Operating Budget request for the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science (UMCES).  We have presented you with a copy of the Center’s 2008 Annual Report, so I will not spend time reviewing all of our activities and accomplishments.  In this written testimony I briefly review the state of UMCES, its important role in restoring the Chesapeake Bay and addressing climate change, and the issues and recommendations in the Department of Legislative Services’ analysis of the budget request.

The State of UMCES

To paraphrase the lead line of the typical State of the Union address by the President, the state of UMCES is strong.  The Center remains a research powerhouse, widely respected, envied and feared as a competitor by peer environmental science institutions in other states.  Under Governor O’Malley’s Administration we are providing scientific knowledge and advice more directly and efficiently than ever before.  We are teaching more courses that benefit not only the graduate students based at the UMCES laboratories, but also students at College Park, UMBC, UMBI, UMES and Frostburg State University.  While we have had to deal with rescissions and furloughs during FY 2009 and will have to accommodate the budgetary constraints of 2010, our enterprise is vibrant in pursuit of the mission given to us by the General Assembly to conduct a comprehensive program of research, advisory services and education in environmental science in order to develop a predictive ecology for Maryland.  We execute this mission through the integration and synergy of the work of our three laboratories across the state (the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory in Solomons, the Horn Point Laboratory near Cambridge, and the Appalachian Laboratory in Frostburg) and the Maryland Sea Grant College Program. 

In short, as our Annual Report demonstrates, UMCES is both ever more globally eminent and ever more locally relevant!

New Flagship for Bay Research

You will notice that our long-awaited new Research Vessel (R/V) Rachel Carson is proudly displayed on the cover of our 2008 Annual Report.  She was christened on November 15 by First Lady Katie O’Malley in ceremonies at the Annapolis City Dock.  R/V Rachel Carson is a state-of-the art research platform specifically tailored to the needs of Chesapeake Bay scientists.  Designed from the keel-up, Rachel Carson is large enough to transport research teams up and down the Bay’s entire 184-mile length, yet has a shallow enough draft to allow scientists access to the smallest of critical Bay tributaries.

In addition to her shallow draft, the Rachel Carson is specifically designed to provide a solid foundation for decades of service to scientists from UMCES, state and federal agencies, and other universities and research institutions.  She is powered by twin engines paired with jet outdrives that allow her to move at a speedy 24 knots.  A state-of-the-art dynamic positioning system allows the vessel to “hover” motionless over one spot regardless of wind and current.  A trio of powerful winches allows scientists to launch and retrieve multiple buoys and advanced electronic sampling devices over the side or stern.  Built-in electronic sensors will continuously measure the Bay’s water quality, biology and currents whether underway or on station. 

The vessel was named after world renowned marine biologist and nature writer Rachel Carson who wrote her most influential books while a resident of Maryland.  Ms. Carson has been commemorated in many ways including a postage stamp, wildlife refuge and middle school, but the R/V Rachel Carson marks the first time she has been formally recognized by the State of Maryland.

The Center’s 45 year old R/V Aquarius completed its last research cruise on the Bay in January.  After completion of shakedown and outfitting, Rachel Carson's first research cruise will be March 16-18, when it will take scientists from the Maryland Department of Natural Resources in their monitoring of water quality along the mainstem of the Bay from Smith Point to Havre de Grace.

External Research Support Growing

While our external research support went down a bit in FY 2007 due, in large measure, to budget reductions and delayed appropriations in Federal science agencies, it came roaring back to nearly $22 million in FY 2008, a 53% increase.  This is particularly impressive in that environmental science research funding was very tight and competition intense.  Already in his Federal FY 2010 budget, President Obama has shown that he is going to invest in science and particularly in environmental science dealing with ecosystem management and climate change, two of the Center’s strong suits. 

Expanding Philanthropic Support

At the beginning of 2008 the Center received a major challenge grant from the France-Merrick Foundation to establish a Professorship in Sustainable Ecosystem Restoration.  This award of up to $750,000 is the largest philanthropic gift in the Center’s history and will support our first endowed professorship.  It will allow us to recruit and support a world leader in this important field, and thus enhance our contributions to restoring the Chesapeake Bay and sustaining its health.  The gift requires a dollar-for-dollar match over a five year period and I am delighted to report that we achieved the goal of raising the first-year matching requirement.

Two members of our Board of Visitors, Joseph Drach and Patricia Mickelson of Florida, have established a $500,000 bequest intention to fund an endowed graduate student fellowship at the Center’s Chesapeake Biological Laboratory.  In addition, they have joined with James Mellody in annually donating to the Drach-Mellody Navigator Award which supports outstanding graduate student research. 

In addition, supporters of our Horn Point Laboratory have raised more than $20,000, largely from waterfront property owners, for stipends for graduate students who conduct research on the health of Eastern Shore rivers. 

UMCES has a goal of $8 million within the University System of Maryland federated campaign and has already raised $5.3 million and is on track to meet its USM obligation by 2012. 

  Restoring the Chesapeake Bay

Smart Restoration

UMCES scientists, from the President on down, work closely with state agencies and directly with Governor O’Malley to increase the outcomes and efficiency of Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay restoration efforts.  I work closely with the Secretaries of the Maryland Departments of Agriculture, Environment, Natural Resources and Planning as part of the Governor’s Chesapeake Bay Cabinet and the leadership team for BayStat, the metric-based management approach about which the Governor is so proud—and justifiably so.  Through these efforts we are accelerating restoration progress and developing the two-year milestones and contingency plans to assure that we ultimately restore the Bay.  BayStat allows us to assess progress, evaluate what’s working and what’s not, and adapt our efforts accordingly.  Our job in BayStat is to make sure that decisions are based on best available science and, by doing so, increase accountability to the citizens of Maryland.
I am also chairing and my Center is staffing the fifteen-member Science Advisory Panel of the Chesapeake and Coastal Bays 2010 Trust Fund.  Panel members have extensive experience in a variety of disciplines including water quality, resource economics, agriculture, engineering, growth and development policies.  As you know, the Trust Fund finances a variety of practices that help reduce nutrients and sediment in the Bay and its tributaries.  The Science Advisory Panel review the implementation plans and provided comments on the most promising of the proposals that requested over $100 million for 2009-2010.   

Restoring and Sustaining Living Resources

From its start with the establishment of the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory in 1925, UMCES has provided the principal source of scientific information on Maryland’s natural resources, particularly those in the Chesapeake Bay. This year, the plight of blue crabs was very much in the news as the states of Maryland and Virginia acted in harmony to reduce the harvest on mature female crabs, certainly the most effective way to increase the spawning stock and allow more crabs to be available in the next generation. From detailed biological studies to sophisticated population models, UMCES scientists provide critical information on stock structure and dynamics that informs the state management. Already, it appears that a 33% reduction in the harvest of mature females was accomplished last year, virtually identical to the management target. While we have to be patient to let the spawning boost have its full effect, our scientists are confident that these management steps will pay off.

Turning to oysters, the Maryland Oyster Advisory Commission, established by the General Assembly in 2007, has reported a broad new strategy for oyster management and restoration that, among other things, includes: (1) focusing population restoration on larger scale, interconnected sanctuary areas that maximize the opportunity for survival in the face of disease and other stressors; and (2) growing Maryland’s oyster industry through emphasis on aquaculture, including permit streamlining, training and startup resources for watermen.

Our Sea Grant Extension Agents have unique expertise in oyster aquaculture and are assisting growers who want to pursue building this new industry. Our Horn Point Oyster Culture Facility produced over 580 million spat on shell during 2008 for use in the restoration efforts. As the DLS analysis points out this was a dramatic recovery over the previous year where algal blooms and poor water quality limited larval survival. I am glad to report that we overcame these problems with solutions and were able to expand production strikingly.

A construction contract for the new Oyster Cultivation Facility was approved just yesterday by the Board of Public Works. Located on a pier, the facilities are designed to alleviate a critical bottleneck—the process of allowing the cultured larvae to set on oyster shells and the critical first week of the life of the spat—and to take full advantage of the capacity of the UMCES larval production facility. We project that it will allow annual production to grow to as many as two billion spat on shell. This is most timely because it will facilitate the implementation of the recent recommendations of Maryland’s Oyster Advisory Commission, both in terms of supporting strategic restoration and innovative aquaculture.

  Addressing Climate Change

Maryland Commission on Climate Change

The Maryland Commission on Climate Change released its Plan of Action that assesses likely climate change impacts in Maryland and presents strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and reduce the state’s vulnerability to climate change. Global Warming and the Free State is the comprehensive climate change impact assessment included as Chapter 2 of the Plan of Action.  It was prepared by a Scientific and Technical Working Group, consisting of leading Marylanders with expertise in climate and its impacts, including five members of the UMCES faculty.  A copy of the report has been distributed to you.

This assessment of impacts is the most thorough of any yet attempted at a state level but its findings are consistent with other international, national and regional assessments.  It is based on extensive review of the scientific literature and climate projections through the 21st century using the same models used by the Nobel prize-winning International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).  To estimate the degree of climate change impacts that could be avoided, higher (continued growth in emissions) and lower (emissions peaking at mid-century) scenarios were employed.

Among the Assessment’s key findings:

On The National Scene

The University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science is also well positioned to contribute to national decisions taken to limit the magnitude of future climate change and adapt to the changes that do take place.  Many of our faculty members are regarded as among the leading experts on climate change impacts.  I am a contributing author for a report soon to be released, Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States, a summary assessment of the likely consequences of climate change to our country produced by the U.S. Government’s Climate Change Science Program.  I have also been recently appointed to the very high profile Committee on America’s Climate Choices under the National Academies. 

Polar Research

While we are known primarily for our research in the Chesapeake Bay and its watershed, UMCES scientists, in fact, work at sites around the world.  This is part of our Globally Eminent, Yet Locally Relevant strategy.  One of the world’s present-day hot spots, as you know, is the Arctic where the pace of change resulting from global warming isstartling.  Several of our faculty members are actively conducting research in the Arctic, studying how the cycling of nutrients and carbon and biological populations are changing as the fall ice cover of the Arctic Sea has rapidly diminished. youtube

Department of Legislative Services Analysis & Recommendation

I am happy to address any of the specific management indicators or other issues identified in the DLS report, but will focus my remaining comments on the issue of relocation of UMCES.  We are frankly dismayed by the analysis and resulting recommendation.  As Chairman Kendall has indicated the USM Board of Regents has regularly evaluated the performance and organization of its research centers and institutes.  Specifically for UMCES, the Board has based its evaluations on in-depth reviews involving external peer evaluators in 1993, 1995 and 2004, one even referring to UMCES as “one of the crown jewels of the System.”  Without exception, these evaluations have been extremely positive.  As Chairman Kendall indicated, after careful and informed consideration, the Board determined that UMCES should retain its present structure as a free standing institute reporting directly to the Chancellor. 

With that in mind, UMCES believes that the conclusion on pages 3 and 13 that “UMCES, USM, and students would benefit from UMCES relocating to one or more of the USM academic institutions” is not based on any assessment of the potential detriments, as well as benefits, to the mission and effectiveness of UMCES.  UMCES operates under statutes that direct it to conduct a comprehensive program of research, education and public service directed at natural resource issues and the development of a predictive ecology for improvement and preservation of Maryland’s environment.  This must be its focus; it is not a general purpose academic institution.  The DLS analysis lacks any reasoned appraisal of the effects of relocating to one or more of the USM academic institutions on the Center’s core mission, which it has fulfilled in an exemplary fashion, as validated by independent review. 

The recommended addition of language that would effectively require budget reductions in order to achieve substantial cost savings through administrative efficiencies is obviously based on the premise of this biased and flawed analysis, because no evidence is otherwise presented that there are administrative inefficiencies.  In fact, UMCES operates an administratively lean organization that already utilizes administrative support services of larger USM institutions for accounting, purchasing, human resources and capital planning.  In fact, administrative costs have already been substantially reduced through the Systems Effectiveness and Efficiency efforts.  In fact, the administration of UMCES adds substantial value to the products of our laboratories, serving as an important conduit of knowledge and advice to the State.  I respectfully request that the General Assembly reject this recommended action.

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