|
Consortium's
USM breaks ground at Cedar Pointe for 7 new
buildings
By MICHAEL NEWSOM
SUN HERALD
OCEAN SPRINGS - Dignitaries picked up ceremonial
golden shovels Thursday and broke ground
on an expansion of the University of Southern
Mississippi's Jackson County holdings.
U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Mississippi, addressed
the crowd on the future site of USM's marine
aquaculture visitor center, which is to be
the first of seven new buildings on the university's
224-acre Cedar Pointe site next to Gulf Island
National Seashore in Ocean Springs.
Cochran said our oceans are infinitely important,
and the government has embarked on a national
effort to protect marine resources.
"This will put us on the team, and
in the organization that is being developed
nationwide by our government to help ensure
that we do what we need to do to protect
our marine resources," he said.
The work at the site will attract jobs to
the Gulf Coast, which he said has a rich
tradition of marine-related industry. Cochran
said the new buildings also give the area
a prominent position in the fisheries research
community.
Spotted seatrout will be the first species
studied at the center. The 10,600-square-foot
building is designed to allow visitors to
be able see the researchers work with fish.
The seatrout will spawn and grow to sizes
that commercial fish operations can use to
seed their farm populations, or to sizes
that can be used for restocking wild saltwater
populations. The trout program began about two years
ago.
Five buildings already at Cedar Pointe are
dedicated to shrimp research. The land was
given to the university by Jackson County
in 1995. Jay Grimes, USM provost and director of
the Gulf Coast Research Lab, said the new
buildings at Cedar Pointe will constitute
a substantial expansion.
"This
building, the existing aquaculture building
that we have here, and to the north
of you and additional buildings that will
be built over the next few years, will allow
Southern Miss to extend its Gulf of Mexico
expertise more broadly and become one of
the premier marine aquaculture
centers in
the world."
Source:
The
Sun Herald
|
