(L-R) U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (D-6th District) and U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) join supporters of the James J. Howard Marine Laboratory on Sandy Hook on April 12 to advocate for keeping the lab, not funded in the 2013 federal budget, from being closed. MIKE DAVIS Support for the James J. Howard Marine Laboratory, facing closure in 2013, extends from the shores of Sandy Hook to Capitol Hill. Federal representatives and local environmentalists attended a press conference at Sandy Hook on April 12 to highlight the research the laboratory conducts about marine life in the Atlantic Ocean and Raritan Bay, and the impact it has on the state’s recreational and commercial fishermen.
“The Howard Laboratory has helped our fishing industry and New Jersey’s $50 billion coastal economy thrive,” U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) said while facing the facility on Magruder Road amid a crowd of advocates waving signs proclaiming the lab’s history and impact.
The James J. Howard Marine Laboratory on Sandy Hook is slated to be closed as part of the proposed 2013 federal budget. MIKE DAVIS “This lab is a blessing for the economy and it is a boom for the environment. And as a member of the Senate committee that funds NOAA[the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, which oversees the facility], I’m going to fight like hell to keep it open.”
The Howard Marine Laboratory, on Sandy Hook for more than 50 years, is slated to be closed as part of the proposed 2013 federal budget as a cost-saving measure, something Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (D- 6th District) disputed on April 12.
“The whole notion is that somehow we’re saving money, but there hasn’t been any indication in a detailed or in any significant way that there’s been a real cost analysis to show that closing this lab would save the federal government money,” Pallone said.
Advocates rally to keep the James J. Howard Marine Laboratory at Sandy Hook open. “What we are basically trying to do is to try and get the Appropriations Committee to provide sufficient funding to keep the lab open and at the same time put a clause in the appropriations bill that would prohibit any funding being spent to actually close the lab. That’s our goal, and that’s hopefully what we’re going to accomplish over the next few months.”
U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) decried the plan, to the applause of the gathered crowd.
“We do have to make tough fiscal decisions. But I’d rather take $24 billion in tax breaks to the big five oil companies than take away a couple of million dollars from this laboratory,” he said.
“Those are our choices. They are choices that can be made with intelligence, choices that can make us good stewards for future generations of New Jerseyans.”
Lautenberg echoed similar sentiments, turning his attention toward federal appropriators at the forefront of the budgetary process.
“There are budget bureaucrats in Washington who see this lab as a line on a ledger sheet that can simply be crossed out,” he said.
“This focus on cutting, cutting, cutting doesn’t really recognize that there are consequences that are in themselves very often terrible for the well-being of our society.
“But here in New Jersey, this laboratory is precious, just as Sandy Hook is the symbol of natural beauty of our shore,” Lautenberg continued.
In 1971 the Howard Laboratory became part of the newly formed National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Marine Fisheries Service. Research expanded to include studies of ecosystem responses to toxins and other environmental degradation, focusing on the New York Bight, where inshore impacts were profound, according to the NOAA website. The 32,000-square-foot facility consists of two buildings housing experimental seawater, analytical chemistry, and microbiology laboratories.
If the lab were to close, more than 50 employees would be relocated to NOAA facilities on the Chesapeake Bay or Long Island Sound.
Menendez said the uniqueness of the Sandy Hook location has an impact on efforts to fight offshore drilling and develop artificial reefing, issues that could not be researched at other locations.
“It is the Howard Lab only that can do that with its scientists. It cannot be done in a different environment within the Chesapeake Bay, and it cannot preserve a major part of the Atlantic for successive generations of New Jerseyans and Americans,” Menendez said.
Cindy Zipf, executive director of environmental group Clean Ocean Action, which is based on Sandy Hook, said the lab’s location in the New York/New Jersey metropolitan area provides a locale no other facility could.
“This is not only the most densely populated and urbanized area in America, but it’s also the ecologically richest area in America because of the incredible ecology of our region,” she said.
“It’s the ecological richness and that urban development that create an important opportunity for science to try and deal with some of the most pressing issues, not just here but in the world.”
The laboratory also directly benefits the commercial and recreational fishermen operating off New Jersey shores, Menendez added.
“It creates not only the science, but a rational basis with our recreational fishermen to have faith when the science says there are some needs to help reconstruct and help rebuild certain fisheries,” Menendez added.
Recreational and commercial fishing generates about $1.9 billion in New Jersey, said Tom Fote, legislative chair for the Jersey CoastAnglers Association.
“We can’t lose this facility. There’s no other facility like it, and we really need to protect it,” Fote said, estimating that as much as 40 percent of the country’s recreational saltwater anglers directly would benefit from the lab’s continued operation.
“I look at how things happen, whether it’s Fort Monmouth or things like that. Sometimes I just shake my head at how these decisions are being made. This is truly a wrong decision. There is no place else that can do the research,” Fote said.
Menendez said the laboratory has the distinct responsibility of looking after the oceans that draw thousands of Gateway National Recreation Area visitors to Sandy Hook.
“What happens along the Jersey Shore is a birthright for every New Jerseyan and every American who comes to visit us, and what happens here at the Howard Laboratory is to preserve that birthright.”
The senator made his own contributions to the preservation effort, taking part in tagging fish for research alongside representatives of the Sandy Hook-based American Littoral Society earlier in the morning.
“I had a really big one, but it got away,” Menendez said.
He hopes the Howard Marine Laboratory won’t be next.
Contact Mike Davis at [email protected].