January 7, 2016 — GLOUCESTER, Mass.— Gloucester officials, reacting to reports that NOAA Fisheries might relocate its Northeast Science Center out of Woods Hole, want the federal agency to consider America’s oldest seaport as a potential new home for the premier fisheries science facility in the Northeast.
Mayor Sefatia Romeo Theken said Gloucester could provide the perfect setting for the science center, which employs about 240 federal and contract employees at its current 3.4-acre site on Vineyard Sound and in facilities in other parts of Falmouth.
“We’re definitely interested if that’s what NOAA decides to do,” Romeo Theken said. “We think we have everything they need here.”
The Northeast Fisheries Science Center, first built in 1885 and reconstructed in 1961 after sustaining hurricane damage, was the first laboratory of the nation’s federal marine fishery service that was established in 1871 and which evolved into the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Read the full story at Gloucester Daily Times