The RV Phoenix, UW-Green Bay’s research vessel, departed from South Bay Marina for a two-hour educational excursion into the Bay of Green Bay. The captain was faculty member and research scientist Christopher Houghton.
All aboard the RV Phoenix! Researchers have been taking campus and community leaders on a tour aboard the UW-Green Bay research vessel Phoenix.
The purpose of the NERR Green Bay Boat Tour is to show friends of the Green Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve (NERR) potential sites for the NERR designation and highlight important discoveries of UW-Green Bay’s water research program. Tours visit make a visit to the water monitoring buoys near Bay Beach. The research there is a collaboration with UW-Milwaukee. The tour continues with a stop at the Cat Island Restoration Project, as passengers learn about the history of that work and the University’s involvement. A stop at Long Tail Point ends the tour at the mouth of the Fox River where the river cleanup and future of water research in the region is discussed.
Proponents of NERR designation are currently developing the NERR Site Selection Criteria and just this week determined membership of the third (and final) committee to help determine a site for the reserve. That committee will start meeting in September and will be responsible for applying the criteria to select a site for the reserve.
More about NERR including a site selection process and updates is available at the NERR website.