The Wrack

It felt great to be back at the Wells NERR after being away for four months, especially since I had spent much of that time wading through reams of data on dissolved oxygen, chlorophyll-a, and dissolved organic nitrogen from our four System Wide Monitoring Program (SWMP) sites in the Webhannet and Little River estuaries.

On Friday, November 4, the House and Senate conferees agreed to legislation setting the FY 06 funding levels for science-related agencies and the Departments of State, Justice, and Commerce. The $57.85 billion spending bill that was approved included $3.9 billion for NOAA, splitting the difference between the Senate mark of $4.5 billion and the House mark of $3.38 billion. The final figure for NOAA is…