Two scientists honored for work at Ches. bio lab

Palmer, Secor lauded

Friday, May 28, 2010

Click here to enlarge this photo Staff photo by DARWIN WEIGEL Fisheries biologist David Secor of the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory in Solomons recently received the University of Maryland Regents' Faculty Award for Excellence. Secor has been with the lab for 19 years. E-Mail This Article | Print This Story

The University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science (UMCES), of which the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory (CBL) in Solomons is an extension, recently honored two scientists — Drs. Margaret Palmer and David Secor — for their work in connection with the lab.

CBL Director D. Margaret Palmer was honored April 14 with the UMCES President's Award for Excellence in Science Application for her activities informing policy makers and the general public about the impacts of mountaintop mining.

Palmer said her research on mountaintop mining involved taking existent sets of data and analyzing them to see if there was a correlation between the location of mountaintop surface mining and incidents of cancer for nearby town residents. The primary question, Palmer said, was: Is there a relationship between water quality and proximity to mountaintop mining?

"The science was absolutely unquestionable," Palmer said. Even when you excluded preexisting health factors such as smoking and age, people who lived in towns near the mining had a much greater incidence of cancer, most notably lung cancer, as well as kidney disease. Palmer said these results indicate that contamination from the mining may be both airborne and waterborne. Palmer is continuing her research in this area with the support of Duke University, she said, and is obtaining additional water samples to determine if there is a safe threshold for surface mining that will cause significantly less environmental contamination and sickness.

Palmer taught and conducted research for 17 years as a professor of the University of Maryland in College Park and has more than 100 scientific publications.

U.S. Senator Benjamin L. Cardin (D-Md.) was quoted in a UMCES press release as saying, "Dr. Palmer's research and that of her world-class team have demonstrated with alarming clarity that this mining practice destroys mountains and streams and also poisons the water, wildlife and people who depend on it. This damage is so severe that it can never be reversed."

"Cardin has been the prime person working at the federal level to ensure we have clean waterways," Palmer said, pointing out that Cardin currently is co-sponsoring two bills to get U.S. water clean, including the Appalachian Restoration bill.

Palmer recently testified before Congress regarding her findings on mountaintop mining; shortly thereafter, she said, the Environmental Protection Agency came out with new guidelines sharply curtailing mountaintop mining. Palmer does not take full credit for this, but she said she likes to believe that her work had a significant impact.

Secor, a fisheries ecologist who has worked with CBL for 19 years, was recognized April 16 with the Regents' Faculty Award for Excellence, the university's highest honor, for his groundbreaking research involving the population biology and ecology of fish.

Secor's research, which is conducted in part through the examination of the otolith, or ear stone, chemistry of the bluefin tuna, indicates that bluefin generally return to where they were born to spawn — a behavior commonly associated with salmon. This discovery has impacted the understanding of fisheries around the world of how some fish species migrate across oceans. It also provides important information, Secor said, that can be used by fisheries around the world to help manage the bluefin populations (the amount of fishing that is being done).

There's still a lot to find out, Secor said, about bluefin migration, such as why some of the fish become "strayers" and never return to their point of origination to spawn. Fisheries along the eastern coast of the United States lose some "strayers" to foreign waters, while simultaneously gaining "strayers" that originally were born in other areas of the world.

Secor said he fully expects to continue his research at CBL on the bluefin for the foreseeable future.

"I'm not going anywhere," Secor said. "I like it here."

Secor received his doctorate in 1990 after conducting dissertation research at the Baruch Institute at the University of South Carolina. Secor is a professor at the UMCES, CBL.

The CBL is located on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay in Solomons and is a marine research facility that is part of UMCES. The lab's dual mission, said Christopher Connor, director of communications and marketing for UMCES, is to support scientific research and graduate level education within the University of Maryland system.

Research at the lab includes the examination of environmental chemistry and climate change, as well as the effect of some environmental toxins on bay animal life, said Amanda Grimes, associate director of administration and external affairs at the UMCES, CBL. The lab has grown a lot over the years, Grimes said. Since 1925, when the lab originally was founded as a site for fisheries research, it has broadened its research capabilities to include environmental restoration and environmental chemistry, Grimes said, and is now utilized by about 120 researchers, staff, faculty and graduate students.

lsadler@somdnews.com

A community resource

Chesapeake Biological Laboratory has a visitors' center open to the public that includes various displays reflecting some of the research being done at the lab. This year includes a historic display. The center also includes an aquarium of fish from the Chesapeake Bay, a weather buoy display with real-time weather data, a live osprey cam and an underwater cam. To access real-time data from the weather buoy, visit www.act-us.info\weather\mainnew.html.

In past years, CBL has held a science seminar series during the summer one evening per month where a scientist will give a talk and explain his research at the lab. For up-to-date information on the science seminar series, as well as other public programs, check the front page of the CBL website for updates at www.cbl.umces.edu.

For more information about the visitors' center at the lab or tours, call 410-326-7443; to learn more about how to volunteer, call 410-326-7296.