By Shelia Watson
Contributing Writer

An agreement between the U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. Commerce Department’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration research facilities in South Carolina will strengthen advances in homeland security, marine health and ocean observation technologies through sensors to detect biological toxins and chemical hazards while maintaining ocean health and water quality.

The partnership combines research efforts at DOE’s Savannah River National Laboratory in Aiken with three of NOAA’s facilities in the Charleston area: the Center for Coastal Environmental Health and Biomolecular Research, the Hollings Marine Laboratory and the NOAA Coastal Services Center.

Homeland security is a major research focus for SRNL. The lab has developed radiation sensors that are used in several port locations nationally and is researching sensors to detect biological toxins and chemical hazards.

Among the projects the agencies will collaborate on are studies in both the toxins from harmful algae and marine bacteria and the viruses that can affect ecosystem health and homeland security.

The studies are important for the Port of Charleston, one of the busiest container ports along the Southeast and Gulf coasts and the focus of intense maritime-security efforts. In addition, ocean health and water quality are linked to South Carolina’s quality of life and economic development, especially its tourism industry, which generates nearly $15 billion annually, according to the S.C. Department of Commerce.

“The Savannah River National Laboratory has a long history of expertise in environmental sciences and microbiology,” said SRNL Laboratory Director G. Todd Wright of Washington Savannah River Company, which operates the laboratory for DOE. SRNL’s history includes the discovery in the 1970s of the water-borne microbe that causes Legionnaire’s Disease, along with extensive work in the development of environmental assessment and restoration technologies.

“This agreement allows us to combine our skills with the vast expertise and resources of NOAA in a way that will provide benefits in numerous endeavors,” said Wright.

NOAA’s Center for Coastal Environmental Health and Biomolecular Research is a national leader in researching algae toxins and the organisms that produce them. Harmful algal blooms, including the recently discovered Pfiesteria cell that produces a toxin when exposed to certain environmental factors, can cause toxins to accumulate in marine animals and lead to closures of recreational and commercial fisheries, deaths among waterfowl and marine mammals, and even illness or death in humans.

Another NOAA facility, the Hollings Marine Laboratory, home to the Center of Excellence in Oceans and Human Health research, fosters science and biotechnology solutions that help protect, maintain and restore coastal ecosystems. The laboratory also contains state-of-the-art facilities for working with highly toxic and infectious agents that could affect human health.

The NOAA Coastal Services Center, which serves the nation’s coastal resource programs, provides information and products for the Integrated Ocean Observing System, a network of buoys, ships, satellites, underwater vehicles and other devices that collect data needed to detect and predict changes in coastal waters.

“The Savannah River National Laboratory and NOAA represent two of the largest federal laboratories in South Carolina focused on environmental health, so this agreement has far-reaching implications for the state and the nation,” said Geoffrey Scott, director of NOAA’s Center for Coastal Environmental Health and Biomolecular Research. “Our laboratories have complementary capabilities, and this agreement will allow us to accomplish much more than either agency could achieve on its own.”

The research partnership between SRNL and NOAA is expected to generate more extensive databases and spur advances in technologies that gauge and forecast ecosystem trends.

Part of NOAA’s focus is enhancing economic security and national safety through the prediction and research of weather and climate-related events and information service delivery for the transportation industry. NOAA is working with several federal partners, more than 60 countries and the European Commission to develop an integrated global monitoring network.

The SRNL-NOAA collaboration follows another recent partnership between SRNL and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, announced in November 2006 when the FBI and SRNL opened a new laboratory and office suite for the forensic examination of radiological material and associated evidence at the Savannah River Site.

The Radiological Evidence Analysis Lab Suite serves as a hub laboratory for the FBI and intelligence agencies involved in the prevention of terrorism and the investigation of the disbursement of radiological materials. The REALS provides the FBI with a flexible radiological containment laboratory where FBI experts can safely conduct forensic examinations on items of evidence associated with radiological material.

Traditional forensic laboratories are not designed for the safe examination of radiological materials and evidence associated with a radiological disbursement. The REALS is equipped with radiological containment systems to protect workers from harmful radiological evidence, while FBI laboratory examiners perform traditional forensic examinations on contaminated evidence. For example, this laboratory space will allow an FBI examiner to collect latent prints or DNA that could eliminate or include a suspect associated with a “dirty bomb.” SRNL and other DOE laboratories conduct the analysis of such radiological components.

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