Behavioral Ecology Blog

What is the SREL?

• Founded in 1951 by Odum- the founder of modern ecology
• Situated on the Savannah River Site- the site of a gov’t operated nuclear reactor and weapons manufacture site.
• Stated goals include the study of the long term effects of radiation.
• From work there- >3,000 publications.
• Undergraduate students from more than 275 colleges and universities have co-authored more than 150 peer-reviewed research publications based upon their research at SREL. More than 200 of these students have gone on to pursue careers in science.
• Undergraduate students from more than 275 colleges and universities have co-authored more than 150 peer-reviewed research publications based upon their research at SREL. More than 200 of these students have gone on to pursue careers in science.
• SREL is home to several endangered plant and animal species. SREL biologists study them. When gone- who will do that?

Sounds like a great place huh- they are productive, successful

The Problem:

Someone in the Bush administration wants to eliminate SREL. This was expressed in the very first budget of the Bush administration in early 2001. SREL’s major budget problems don’t have anything to do with science, national priorities, mission critical to DOE, or lack of funding. All of those things are smoke put up by administration political appointees or people who must answer to them.

The Result

The Savannah River Ecology Laboratory’s (SREL) funding from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) will be exhausted May 31, 2007 and as a result UGA is moving forward with closure of the lab. The DOE or its predecessor has supported SREL for ecological research and environmental education for 56 years.

During the past year, SREL has worked with Savannah River Site (SRS) representatives to implement a new 5-year cooperative agreement with task-based funding, similar to what has been used for the past 20+ years. According to written and verbal communications from DOE, the funds to complete these tasks are available at the SRS. However, these funds have not been released to SREL. Instead, DOE officials in Washington DC have required SRS managers to route everything concerning SREL to Washington DC, where all requests for SREL funding are rejected as being unnecessary to the DOE or SRS missions.

Seems a shame to let an institution of this magnitude go down the tubes- especially as the evidence suggests that this might be as a result of the deprioritization of science under GW Bush.. This is not an small lab doing bullshit research nobodty cares about…