October 15, 2018 — A dispute across Buzzards Bay may break out between Falmouth and the City of New Bedford.
The Falmouth Board of Selectmen has been working to keep the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center in Woods Hole.
Other elected officials in the area have also been lobbying for NOAA to keep the Northeast Fisheries Science Center in Woods Hole for weeks.
In late September, Falmouth selectmen teamed up with Barnstable County state representatives and state senators, area chambers of commerce, directors from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), the Marine Biological Laboratory, and the Woods Hole Research Center to pen a letter to the federal agency urging them to stay put in the small section of Falmouth.
Operations Chief of the NOAA Fisheries Science Center Garth Smelser responded to that letter, and met with Falmouth and Barnstable County officials on Friday to discuss the possible move.
“For almost 150 years we’ve been studying fish, marine mammals, sea turtles, seabirds and the marine environments that sustain them, and right here in Barnstable County we have over 300 employees and contractors that complete that work. The Fisheries Commission started right here in our community. We’ve been doing wonderful marine science for those 150 years,” Smelser told elected officials. “Yes, we are very proud of our presence in Woods Hole, but we’re much bigger than just Woods Hole. We have 225 federal staff and 165 contract staff spread around the east coast from Orono, Maine all the way down to Sandy Hook, New Jersey. The majority of our folks are centered in Woods Hole, but we’re just as proud of our other people.”