Spring Renewal
Professor Billie J. Swalla, Director of FHL
Spring is in the air, the daffodils are blooming, and FHL is undergoing its own renewals this spring. The main lab, Fernald lab, has served FHL for over 50 years. Built in 1964 as a lab to be used in the summer only, this beloved building’s plumbing was showing its age and is being refitted for drains in the basement. The FHL office staff is temporarily in Lab 10, enjoying the views and the spacious design there, and the animals from the touch tank have been relocated to Lab 8. We are looking at a June 1 deadline to have this construction finished in time to welcome our many summer students and researchers.
We are moving forward on the FHL Observatory, funded by an NSF Field Stations and Marine Labs grant with Ken Sebens, PI and co-PIs Emily Carrington, Alex Gagnon, Daniel Grunbaum and Billie Swalla. This is a project in collaboration with UW Oceanography and APL (Applied Physics Lab). Kristy Kull is coordinating the diving, building, and ordering that will be necessary to complete this project. There are plans for deep- and shallow-water monitoring sites, with equipment continuously recording environmental conditions. After much discussion, we are ready to purchase instruments and authorize APL to begin work on the interface box and the software to convert and transmit data from each instrument. Once the equipment is received, we’ll need to build the platforms for them and eventually get them in the water to begin collecting environmental data.
FHL's campus has a new look, due to removal of trees last fall for a fire mitigation project. Our contractor was Rain Shadow Consulting, an ecological company owned by Carson and Samantha Sprenger and we would highly recommend them for any sort of job that you have that includes tree and brush removal. They were a pleasure to work with: communicative, professional, and responsive. FHL needed removal of trees and brush in order to protect the campus and buildings during a possible forest fire. The result is a more open look that is easier for our crew to maintain and manage. We’ve also used some of the trees to repair our dock, so they are being re-purposed in-house.
We continue to work to fill the places of our FHL retirees, although fortunately you are likely to see Vikky, Craig, and David on campus, as they are continuing to work in part-time and flexible capacities. Captain Craig Melvin has been hired as a new Centennial Captain. Bernadette Holthuis has been very busy as the new FHL Program Coordinator for housing and my Assistant. Grant Schwinge is doing computer support and learning to maintain and set up microscopes for courses and researchers at FHL. Vikky Dauciunas is the project manager for a new FHL web site that we are planning with the College of the Environment, and she is coordinating the many people who are working on this project. Stay tuned for updates!
We are also making many needed improvements to the caretaker’s house on campus, home to Michelle and Mike Herko. The entire family has moved into a set of duplexes for the winter and spring so that our maintenance crew can have access to the house in order to upgrade the electrical and make necessary plumbing improvements. We are pleased to make these changes for Mike and Michelle, as they do so much for FHL!
Spring 2015 quarter has already begun! This spring we have a Cornell Research Apprenticeship led by Drew Harvell, the Three Seas Program is back, and we have the FHL ZooBot courses and Research Experiences running. We welcome the students to our campus and look forward to an exciting and productive 2015 spring quarter. We are all looking forward to getting back to our offices in Fernald before the summer begins!
