Imagine a science fair dedicated to marine life, taught by marine biologists, and open to the public – and that’s basically what you got if you went to the City’s Ocean Monitoring Program’s Open House on Sunday.
The third annual event highlighted what the City of San Diego’s Public Utilities Program does to make local beaches clean and safe.
“Most people don’t know that San Diego has one of the largest marine monitoring systems in the country,” said Peter Vroom, the deputy director of the public utilities department.
The City’s Ocean Monitoring Program uses two ocean monitoring vessels to collect seawater and other types of samples approximately 200 days a year. The samples come from as far as 10 miles from shore, and as deep as 1,640 feet, and are then analyzed in labs like the Scripps Institute of Oceanography.
The Open House attracted a lot of young science enthusiasts like Josh and Lily Manison from South Park.
“I feel like I’ve learned about the predatory invertebrates that they have and the other animals they have in jars,” Josh said.
“I think it’s really cool and what I learned is that crabs only come in warm water and not cold,” said Lily, Josh’s younger sister.
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The event is free and open to the public.
