Ships of Opportunity
Using NC Ferries to Monitor the Pamlico Sound p.3
The pair visited U.S. Environmental Protection Agency offices
from Research Triangle Park to Washington, D.C., as well as
the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA), the National Estuarine Program and the Sea Grant program.
They also went to state offices and the North Carolina General
Assembly in Raleigh.
Those efforts yielded them some initial EPA and Sea Grant
funding for their FERRYMON program. But the real spur to their
efforts came after back-to-back hurricanes Dennis and Floyd
produced a disastrous "500 year" flood in 1999 that destroyed
homes and livestock throughout the watershed and poured in
enough extra runoff to overwhelm the estuary.
"Fish distributions, catches, community composition, and
incidence of disease were all altered," Ramus, Paerl and 10
other scientists wrote in an Oct.3, 2000 article on estuary
effects in the American Geophysical Union research journal
Eos. "Longer-term ecological changes appear to be taking place
as well."
In the aftermath, "the state realized it had to fast-track
some kind of monitoring program for the Pamlico," Ramus says.
Flooding aside, state officials needed such regular and long-term
information to evaluate the impacts of land use and nutrient
management programs already begun in upstream areas.
With about $700,000 from the Hurricane Floyd relief fund
and other sources, "we have the wherewithal, at least, to
do a pilot program," he adds.
One ferry on each of three initial routes - two running from
mainland points to Ocracoke Island on the Outer Banks and
the third crossing the Lower Neuse River between Cherry Branch
and Minnesott - are being fitted out with devices that automatically
log water quality, locate the sampling points with satellite
navigation, and download the data to a computer in Ramus's
laboratory.
These units, which are tied into the water intake systems
for the ferries' heating, ventilation and air conditioning,
also collect and refrigerate additional water samples for
pickup and analysis by Paerl's institute.
The Lower Neuse ferry, the first to be automated, makes 40
crossings a day from 5 a.m. until 1 a.m., and covers water
that also is being monitored by a separate river water quality
monitoring program called MODMON.
Such cross checking is essential, argues Ramus. In fact,
at the same time he is pushing to get long-term funding to
add on more ferries, he also sees the need to "increase the
dimensions of the study" by linking it to satellite surveillance
by NOAA and NASA.
"Each ferry basically traces a line across the surface,"
he says. "That's not going to give us a comprehensive view
of the Pamlico Sound and its tributary rivers." Still, ferries
are a useful, and exploitable, first step. "There are ferry
systems all over the country and all over the globe that could
be put to work this way," he adds.
"It wouldn't surprise me that every people transporter in
the country within a decade or two will be working in the
field of water quality monitoring."
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