Dr. Drew Carey (far left) among other scientists at this year’s WGMBRED meeting.
This past week Dr. Drew Carey co-chaired the panel for the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea’s (ICES) Working Group on Marine Benthal and Renewable Energy Developments (WGMBRED) during their annual meeting in Brussels. ICES is the world’s oldest intergovernmental science organization and Dr. Carey joined the conversation between international scientists moving forward to ensure the health of coastal and offshore marine ecosystems among a rapidly expanding renewable energy economy. Meeting annually over a three-year period, the WGMBRED working group develops working plans and guidance concerning the effects of offshore wind energy and development on local fisheries and seafloor ecosystems. National leadership around the North Atlantic Ocean—including the United States and the EU—look to the guidance developed by this working group to further pursue offshore renewable energy interests while managing the ocean’s shared resources. Dr. Carey will join WGMBRED next year, and the work completed by this group will continue to aid future research in this area, where the complex relationships between energy developments influence the benthic communities along coastlines around the world.
Next year the working group is headed to Rhode Island! WGMBRED is scheduled to reconvene at URI’s Graduate School of Oceanography in April 2020.
We are attending Battelle’s Tenth International Conference on Remediation and Management of Contaminated Sediments on February 11-14. Principal Scientist Kersey Sturdivant will present a paper co-written with INSPIRE founder, Joe Germano titled, Trapped in Plato’s Cave: Benthic Indices and the Illusion of Objectivity. Kersey is also chairing an exciting session on Data Visualization.
INSPIRE’s Marisa Guarinello will be presenting recent projects that demonstrate the utility of Sediment Profile and Plan View Imaging as a sediment management tool. Steve Sabo will also be demonstrating our innovative data visualization tools to interested conference-goers.
This biannual conference is attended by over 1,000 scientists, engineers, regulators, remediation site owners, and environmental professionals, representing universities, government agencies, consultants, and R&D and service firms from over 20 countries. The technical scope for the 2019 Sediments Conference focuses on emerging issues and initiatives in sediments remediation and management.
INSPIRE Environmental has been awarded two, 5-year, $5M prime contracts to support the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in New York and New England. Under contract with the New York District, INSPIRE will provide scientific and engineering services for monitoring dredged material at the Historic Area Remediation Site (HARS) off of New York and New Jersey – including support for an update to the site management and monitoring plan.
The scope for the New England District contract includes harbor testing, Disposal Area Monitoring System (DAMOS) monitoring, and archaeological studies at disposal sites along the New England coast. Many of the INSPIRE team members have been working on these projects with the Corps for many years. We are excited about the opportunity to help both Districts as they move forward into a new era of monitoring!
