BOOTHBAY HARBOR, Maine — A coastal Maine ocean research laboratory is to receive a federal grant of more than $600,000.
Maine Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins say the National Science Foundation has awarded the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences in Boothbay Harbor a $603,631 grant to conduct biological oceanography research. The study will be in the area of iron oxidizing bacteria.
The National Science Foundation is an independent federal agency that funds research in many fields, such as mathematics, computer science and the social sciences.
There are, of course, other grants to other institutions in other states for which Mainers will be sending taxes to Washington, never to be seen again. Since Maine is a ‘tax beneficiary’ state and gets back 1.4 times what it pays, we do, in this case, manage to take advantage of our neighbors to the tune of around $180,000 – not $600,000, as our senators would have it. And of that $180,000, almost half – say, $80,000 – is borrowed and a future tax burden for Mainers, who will pay 70% of it. Plus interest.
So, not such a deal.