Courtesy / University of Maine
Heather Leslie
Updated: November 3, 2020
$5.2M rehab of waterfront lab in Walpole will build research and business capacity
Courtesy / University of Maine
Work is underway to replace the UMaine Darling Marine Center’s aging main pier and update its flowing seawater system. The marine center is in Walpole.
A $5.2 million waterfront infrastructure improvement project at the University of Maine’s Darling Marine Center in Walpole will upgrade facilities going back half a century and could enhance the center's research and business incubator projects.
“We’re bringing the laboratory into the 21st century,” the center’s director, Heather Leslie, told Mainebiz.
The marine center has more than 40 faculty, staff and students who work there year-round.
The project involves replacing the 50-year-old main pier and updating its flowing seawater system, including the pump house and the center’s oldest flowing seawater laboratory. The system pumps water from the sea to the lab for research experiments.
When completed, the upgrade is expected to benefit faculty, students and the center’s partners — fishermen, aquaculture entrepreneurs, marine industry professionals and community members — through collaborative research, workforce development and business incubation programs.
One current project is tracking the health of lobster populations amid climate change, which could have implications for harvest regimens along the Atlantic coast. Another example of research at the center is experiments by university researchers and students, working with shellfish entrepreneurs, to explore new ways to farm shellfish, particularly scallops and oysters, as well as seaweed.
Construction on the upgrades began earlier this year and is expected to be largely completed by the end of 2020.
The improvements are funded by an award from the U.S. Economic Development Administration with matching funds from UMaine and a state bond, approved by voters in 2014, designed to issue $7 million in bonds to facilitate growth of marine businesses.
Prock Marine in Rockland and the Penobscot Co. in Rockport have the primary contracts for the project, and have tapped local electricians and other tradespeople to help.
Flowing seawater
Darling has been UMaine’s marine laboratory since 1965. The center has two laboratories that use seawater. One is called the Flowing Seawater Laboratory and was built in the late 1960s. Another is called the Marine Culture Laboratory and was completed in 2001 for the culture of marine organisms, predominantly shellfish.
The flowing seawater system that feeds both labs was built in the late 1960s. Pumps at the end of the main pier push 500 gallons of seawater per minute to head tanks in the Marine Culture Laboratory. From there, gravity pulls the seawater through the Flowing Seawater Lab and back to the river.
“The flowing seawater system is essentially the circulatory system of the lab,” Leslie said.
The system can sustain thousands or millions of marine organisms, depending on the experiments that the center’s scientists and their partners are conducting.
Unlike the old system, the new one will have controls to manipulate characteristics such as water temperature, salinity and acidity. The ability to manipulate those characteristics is important for researchers and industry partners seeking to simulate the dynamic natural environment, said Leslie. Being able to replicate those conditions in the lab makes it possible to study the effects of those conditions on various species, she explained.
“To be able to look at these changes in a holistic way is critical if we’re to sustain the health of our wild fisheries and farmed seafood industry,” she said.
Main pier
The main pier was built in 1969. It has been out of commission since 2016, and considered unsafe because of deterioration of its supporting structure. Consequently, the center’s 42-foot research vessel, named the Ira C., has docked since 2017 at a timber pier built as a workaround until the main pier is renovated.
The new infrastructure will allow researchers who are helping the state’s marine fisheries and aquaculture sectors adapt, diversify and grow in response to changing environmental conditions. Scientists and students based at the center conduct applied research and work collaboratively with marine industry professionals to develop new value-added marine products and bring them to commercial scale. The center’s researchers and industry partners also provide on-the-job training and experience to university students, the next generation of marine science professionals.
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