In the United States, however, those communities essentially compete for one pot of money, as the lion’s share of funding for basic ocean-sciences research comes from the National Science Foundation (NSF). This year, Congress gave NSF $5 million to begin construction of the $331 million Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI); NSF hopes for a big funding spike in 2009–11 to finish the job. The largest portion of funds— estimated to be about $170 million—will go to build the deep-water cabled observatory off the Oregon and Washington coasts. When the idea for this expensive observatory first began to gain traction several years ago, the broader oceanography community balked until additional components—a few buoys designed to operate at high latitudes, a network of instruments off the Oregon coast, and a cyberinfrastructure component to handle the expected surge of data—were added. “In order to get community buy-in to the OOI idea, there were some compromises made,” McNutt says.However, although Congress agreed to pay for the new infrastructure, it didn’t provide any extra money to run or maintain OOI’s cables and instruments. That money—expected to total about $50 million a year—will have to come out of NSF’s general budget of about $300 million a year for ocean sciences. Niiler and other critics argue that becausethe cabled observatories are fixed in place on the ocean floor, they will primarily benefit underwater geologists and geophysicists. Yet, because the operations and maintenance funding will come from the ocean-sciences community as a whole, the high price tag could force cuts in other areas. “I worry that small, individual principal investigator–driven science will be harmed in its breadth and depth by paying too much for these observatories,” says a U.S.–based oceanographer who asked not to be named out of concern that it could hurt his chances of acquiring future NSF funding.
“We agree that operations and maintenance funding is the ongoing struggle of science right now,” says Adam Schultz, a geophysicist at OSU, who is currently serving as a program director for ocean sciences at NSF. However, he and others point out that geologists and geophysicists aren’t the only ocean scientists getting new equipment these days. Other researchers have received, from NSF and other sources, a $120 million ship for arctic research, $100 million for a new drilling ship, submersibles, and a global ocean float network called Argo. “Now we are adding new capability that will not appeal to everyone. As an organization, we have to find a balance,” Schultz says. Julie Morris, director of NSF’s ocean sciences division, adds that if Congress and President George W. Bush continue their push to double spending on physical sciences research and development, which could obviate much of the funding concerns.