Researchers rush to save San Francisco Bay's only marine lab before it shuts down
From SF Gate: https://www.sfgate.com/local/article/san-francisco-bay-marine-lab-20165539.php
On a recent Monday afternoon, Katharyn Boyer gazed out toward a parking lot from her office on the northern coastline of Tiburon. As the fog swirled over the bay, the biologist and interim executive director of San Francisco State University’s Estuary and Ocean Science Center thought of what the stretch of pavement had the potential to become: an aquatic research and training facility buoyed by a recent $5.8 million grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. She could have held meetings there, or leased out tanks and classrooms as a way to help keep the center’s projects going amid mounting university budget shortfalls.
Instead, the only marine lab on San Francisco Bay, which conducts critical research on the region’s water quality and the impacts of climate change, is set to close due to lack of funding.
“I had this vision," Boyer told SFGATE over the phone. “It would have been part of our solution. Now I’m looking at this bare space.”
Earlier this month, SF State president Lynn Mahoney announced plans to wind down operations at Romberg Tiburon Campus – a former U.S. Navy base that had been open since 1978 – and gradually move students and faculty to its main campus on 1600 Holloway Avenue. But the writing had been on the wall since as early as May 2022, when the university informed staff at the research center that they would need to come up with ways to cover operating costs as the deteriorating 53-acre center faced rising maintenance costs, Boyer said. Some of the buildings were red-tagged and rendered unusable, according to the university.
Working with an advisory group, Boyer presented a proposal in September 2023 for a five-year plan that involved a combination of securing grants, bringing new organizations to the site and renovating the barracks building to lease some of the space for rental income. She said she didn’t hear back for a year and a half, during which time she shaved down the budget and raised “as much money as I could,” coming $600,000 short of covering ongoing operating costs.
The grant funding could only get her so far. SF State declared a “financial emergency” in December as enrollment declined by as much as 25% over the last five years, requiring approximately $25 million in budget cuts, Robert King, a spokesperson for the university, told SFGATE.
The university “worked for years to try to find a way forward” for the Tiburon campus but “one never materialized,” he said in an email. “Our mission focus on undergraduate education does not allow us to operate a second location at a deficit. If some funding source that eliminated that deficit were to materialize it would obviously change the situation.”
There is no timeline for the phasing out of the campus and no future plans are slated for the site, King said. No layoffs are expected.
Researchers have been reeling from the loss, Boyer said. The center’s unique location allows them to bring in water from the depths of San Francisco Bay and simulate conditions back in the laboratory to help them understand how organisms such as invertebrates, fish and eelgrass are influenced by ocean acidification, nutrient pollution and events like harmful algal blooms and oil spills. It’s part of a long-term national water quality monitoring network known as the Central and Northern California Ocean Observing System. The close proximity to the water not only makes it easier for researchers to go out on boats and observe the mile of shoreline habitat, but also contribute to a dataset that allows scientists to look back and detect changes in the ocean ecosystem over time.
“There’s no place anywhere around San Francisco Bay that has that ability,” Boyer said.
Researchers also develop reef structures in the lab that are subsequently tested along the coast to see what species are using them and how they hold up in storms. From there, they can make recommendations on projects that can help improve habitats for species across the bay.
The murky timeline for phasing out Romberg Tiburon Campus has left Boyer concerned about how much time they have left to conduct this kind of research. She’s currently working on a project to plant 75 acres of eelgrass in Richardson Bay to help mitigate the impacts of climate change, which was funded through 2027 but may not be completed depending on how quickly the shutdown rolls out.
“We bring in eelgrass from natural beds and rig it up into transplant units in our system of tanks and tables before taking it out on our boats to restoration sites,” she said. “We have no idea how this will be supported if the [Estuary and Ocean Science Center] closes.”
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife will no longer be able to conduct chinook salmon releases on site, and Boyer also lamented the potential loss of a pilot oyster shell recycling program that was scheduled to launch in June. The center planned to work with Hog Island restaurants to gather the shells for use in shoreline restoration projects that would help attract native oysters and reduce the impacts of sea level rise.
Boyer added that students in the middle of their masters’ theses or conducting experiments using tanks in the facility have also been blindsided by the news. The grant she received from NOAA to build a new center and greenhouse will likely have to be returned.
“This facility could be transformative for student training, research and restoration initiatives in the region,” she said. “I’m just sick about it.”
Looking ahead, Boyer doesn’t know what ramifications there might be if long-term data sets come to a halt, many of which are used by the Environmental Protection Agency and the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board, she said.
“This affects our ability to understand and predict harmful events in the water,” she said. “If there’s a gap of six months or a year that we stop collecting the data, this region of the bay will not have any information collected of that nature.”
In the initial Feb. 4 announcement, SF State president Mahoney said that while important research has been “a hallmark” of the campus, “very few students, faculty and staff will be directly impacted by the planned, phased closure of the satellite facility,” noting three tenure-track faculty, 11 associate faculty researchers, nine stated-funded staff and eight grant-funded staff work there. Though 40 students participate in activities at the center, none are enrolled in courses there for spring 2025; an interdisciplinary master’s program in estuary science was discontinued last year and folded into the graduate program in biology as a concentration area, Mahoney added.
Still, Boyer said she, other faculty and students were “all very much caught off guard” by the news.
“None of us were aware this decision would be made right then and there,” she said. “We’ve been waiting so long to hear anything about what might be acceptable and what directions we might take next. It was surprising and very difficult for us to be given this information about this plan to close – it felt very sudden after so much time.”
Research had been conducted at Romberg Tiburon Center since 1978.
Now, she expects the center will require a certain level of maintenance and funding just so it doesn’t fall further into disrepair.
“The initial plan would be to put up a big fence and spend close to $500,000 just to maintain an empty, shuttered site,” she said. “It’s disappointing to think I could raise so much money and have that happen.”
Boyer said she hasn’t lost hope and is making a plea to potential donors who can help keep the lights on. Establishing a public-private partnership with both commercial and nonprofit activity running at the site is another possibility, but she’s worried it won’t happen fast enough.
“The situation we’re in is urgent,” she said. “We’re asking people to reach out if they have ideas.”
Feb 16, 2025
Assistant Local Editor