R/V Thomas G. Thompson paid a visit to Elliott Bay on Thursday. She is owned by the University-National Oceanographic Laboratory System (UNOLS) Office of Naval Research and operated under charter by the School of Oceanography at the University of Washington as part of the UNOLS fleet. The Thompson is 274 ft in length, 52.5 ft. beam, and at full load has a 19 foot draft.
UNOLS is an organization of 61 academic institutions and laboratories involved in oceanographic research and joined for the purpose of coordinating oceanographic ships' schedules and research facilities. See http://www.unols.org/info/unols.html. According to the research schedule published by Oceanic, a service of the College of Marine Studies at the University of Delaware (http://www.researchvessels.org/index.htm), the Thompson has recently been involved in a monitoring project for the US Department of Energy near Amchitka Island, which is located at the far western end of the Aleutians.
During the 1960's and early 1970's, the Federal government used Amchitka Island as a site for three underground nuclear tests. The purpose of the monitoring program is to evaluate whether radioactive particles from these tests have entered the marine food chain, resulting in potential ecological and human health effects. For further information, see www.lm.doe.gov/Amchitka/Sampling_Plan.pdf. One wonders whether a similar monitoring program will be required near the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant off the coast of Japan.
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