Nearly 40 volunteers from the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration joined today with staff from
the Virginia Commonwealth University’s Rice Center for Environmental
Education, personnel from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s
Harrison Lake Fish Hatchery, and students from I.C. Norcom High School
to restore a portion of the Chesapeake Bay shoreline in the first NOAA-sponsored
Virginia NOAA Restoration Day.

Volunteers planted underwater grasses at
the VCU Rice Center sites adjoining the Chesapeake Bay which were grown
this spring in 16 tanks at NOAA offices around the region, I.C. Norcom
High School in Portsmouth, and Nauticus, The National Maritime Center,
in Norfolk. Participants also cleared debris from the water’s
edge, removed invasive plant species, built and installed 20 nesting
boxes for wetland-loving birds known as prothonotary warblers, and tested
water quality.

"NOAA is pleased to be able to sponsor
these annual activities," said Captain Craig McLean., acting deputy
assistant administrator of NOAA’s National Ocean Service. "NOAA
Restoration Day provides a hands-on opportunity for our employees to
demonstrate NOAA's mission to protect, restore and manage our coastal
resources, and in particular the treasured resource of Chesapeake Bay."

“We are proud to bring NOAA Restoration
Day to Virginia. Employees from seven NOAA offices in Hampton Roads
took time out of their busy schedules to help restore the Chesapeake
Bay,” said Lowell Bahner, director of the NOAA Chesapeake Bay
Office. “That shows how committed NOAA employees are to restoring
the bay.”

This is the first Restoration Day held
in Virginia. Restoration Days have taken place in Maryland since 2004.
The annual restoration activities, conducted through NOAA's Chesapeake
Bay Office, which is run jointly by NOAA Fisheries Service and the National
Ocean Service.

The NOAA Chesapeake Bay Office is in its
second decade of providing science, service, and stewardship to advance
NOAA’s mission in the mid-Atlantic region through programs in
fisheries, habitat, coastal observations, and education.

NOAA Fisheries Service is dedicated to
protecting and preserving our nation’s living marine resources
and their habitats through scientific research, management and enforcement.
NOAA Fisheries Service provides effective stewardship of these resources
for the benefit of the nation, supporting coastal communities that depend
upon them, and helping to provide safe and healthy seafood to consumers
and recreational opportunities for the American public.

NOAA, an agency of the U.S. Department
of Commerce, is dedicated to enhancing economic security and national
safety through the prediction and research of weather and climate-related
events and providing environmental stewardship of the nation's coastal
and marine resources. Through the emerging Global Earth Observation
System of Systems (GEOSS), NOAA is working with its federal partners,
more than 60 countries and the European Commission to develop a global
network that is as integrated as the planet it observes, predicts and
protects.