First Lady Dedicates Mississippi Marine Education Center

At a recent ceremony dedicating the J. L. Scott Marine Education Center’s Gulf Coast Research Laboratory in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, First Lady Laura Bush told marine educators, conservationists, and other attendees that America needs to fight the pollution of oceans and waterways. “Healthy oceans and waterways provide the food we eat and often the water we drink,” the First Lady said. “I’ve seen what humans can do to devastate marine life.”

Heavily damaged by Hurricane Katrina two years ago, the Ocean Springs research lab, was the 21st of its kind designated as a Coastal Ecosystem Learning Center promoting recycling, conservation, and a general marine life education. NRCS and the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality partnered together to donate an Enviroscape (interactive watershed model) and a Groundwater Aquifer Model for watershed educational support at the lab.

NRCS and the U.S. Forest Service are two of 13 federal and over 1,000 State, local and non-governmental partners in the Coastal America Partnership ― an interagency, intergovernmental, public-private partnership working to restore and protect coastal habitats and resources.
Your contact is Jeannine May, NRCS public affairs specialist, at 601-965-4337.