The Downeast Institute in Beals, a fully equipped marine research laboratory, will more than double its size with the help of $5 million in investment funding.
A $2 million donation from the Next Generation Foundation triggered the release of an additional $2 million in state bond funds to provide the bulk of the $5 million expansion at the Downeast Institute. The laboratory is home to the Marine Science Field Station of the University of Maine at Machias. On hand for the announcement, Chancellor Jim Page says the facility is building a national reputation in the research community.
“It’s absolutely imperative that Maine leads the way in understanding our natural environment, understanding our natural resources and being able to constructively manage them for the long haul,” Page says. “If we get this right, this is not just important for this community, this is important for the country.”
The DEI’s hatchery operations have provided hundreds of millions of juvenile shellfish to communities and shellfish farmers throughout Maine. Sue Huseman, president of the University of Maine at Machias, says her campus’s marine science students are energized by studying at the institute.
“Not only do our students have the opportunity to learn and conduct directed research here, but they’re able to rub elbows with scientists from all over the world,” Huseman says. “They have this incredible opportunity and they come back to campus glowing, they are so excited by their experience. They’re so newly motivated to continue and complete their own studies so that they can join the marine research community as scientists and researchers themselves.”
Improvements at the lab will include expanded laboratory and shellfish production areas. State Sen. Joyce Maker, a Calais Republican, says the facility is an example of the effect that public-private partnerships can have on a region.
“Establishing the nation’s easternmost fully equipped marine research facility at the Downeast Institute builds on our regional strengths and demonstrates that Down East Maine people have the talent that it takes to lead and to serve all of Maine,” she says.