Marine Research and Education Center (MREC), St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands—Project for the International Sustainable Laboratory Student Design Competition
- Michael Bayer, AICP, Environmental Resources Management, Project Manager
- Stephen Meinhold, Ph.D., Associate Dean of Research, University of North Carolina Wilmington
- Karen H. Koltes, Ph.D., Manager, Coral Reef Program, Office of Insular Affairs, U.S. Department of the Interior
- Joel Tutein, Superintendent, Salt River Bay National Historical Park and Ecological Preserve
The National Park Service (NPS), Office of Insular Affairs (OIA), and the Joint Institute for Caribbean Marine Studies (JICMS) are working together to develop a Marine Research Education Center (MREC) at Salt River Bay National Historical Park and Ecological Preserve (SARI) in the United States Virgin Islands (USVI). The partnership between the JICMS universities and federal and territorial partners provides an opportunity to pair the research and educational missions of the universities with the resources and science-based management needs of the National Park Service and National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.
As a center of excellence for marine science, the MREC will seek to create a network of marine researchers throughout the Caribbean and develop coordinated approaches to marine science and resource management in the region. The urgent challenges facing ocean ecosystems require that researchers and institutions share their knowledge and apply their expertise in a collaborative manner that create solutions at the scale of the ecosystem, which span boundaries and regions.
The site at Salt River Bay provides easy access to the sea in a historically rich setting that is ideal for studies of tropical marine sciences, history, archaeology, landscape architecture, and Caribbean studies. The clear, warm water provides opportunities to sample and observe ecology at scales ranging from individual organisms to entire ecosystems in a location where marine life forms are diverse. The site offers an opportunity to conduct holistic studies spanning ridge to reef.
The MREC will occupy five to seven acres of a 73-acre National Park Service parcel (federally-owned and co-managed with the government of the Virgin Islands) on the east side of SARI along the north central coast of St. Croix.
The MREC is envisioned as a world-class green facility constructed to LEED® Platinum or other similar "green building" or sustainability standards, accessible to people with disabilities, relying on renewable energy resources such as wind and solar power, and designed to minimize impacts to the surrounding viewshed, sensitive coastal habitats, cultural resources, and adjacent marine areas, under guidelines set by the Sustainable Sites Initiative.
The MREC will serve as a green energy and design demonstration project to encourage the use of these technologies in the USVI and Caribbean region, and as a means to develop private support for the concept.
This session will provide an overview of the program, the partners' goals for the sustainable operation of the laboratory, the approach to design, and the role of each of the partners in the project.
The JICMS is a consortium of four universities: the University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW); the University of the Virgin Islands (UVI); Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey (RU); and the University of South Carolina (USC).