The laboratory was recognized for an environmentally sensitive design for marine docks, a process for removing mercury from industrial wastes and a system that tracks the behavior and fate of migrating juvenile salmon.
ECOLOGICAL DOCK DESIGN
Docks typically harm nearshore marine life. PNNL, Miller/Hull Partnership architects of Seattle and a dozen stakeholders teamed to create a new kind of dock at the Northwest Maritime Center in Port Townsend, Wash.
Opened in May 2004, the new dock supports a restored eelgrass bed that provides habitat for Dungeness crab, salmon and other species. Above water, the dock is designed to accommodate vessels ranging from tall ships to sea kayaks, plus a future educational center.
The dock also received the international Waterfront Center's 2004 Urban Waterfront Projects Award for environmental protection and enhancement. The jury chair called the dock "a $1.5-million experiment - a relatively small undertaking that has the potential to influence thinking and design elsewhere."
THE SOUNDS OF SALMON
Researchers at PNNL and the National Marine Fisheries Service have developed a sophisticated yet simple underwater acoustic system that reveals the behavior and fate of migrating juvenile Chinook salmon as they pass through the Columbia River hydropower system and the lower Columbia River estuary.
The system consists of tiny microtransmitters implanted in salmon and receivers anchored to the river bottom that individually identify each tagged fish and record behavioral data. The information will be used to find new ways to increase salmon survival, avoid impacts on migrating juvenile salmon from activities associated with jetty r
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Contact: Judith Graybeal
graybeal@pnl.gov
509-375-4351
DOE/Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
29-Apr-2005