A joint project between the University of Washington research vessel Thomas G. Thompson and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ship Miller Freeman includes the placement of an oceanographic data collector buoy named after the fishing vessel Big Valley, which sank in January 2005 in the Bering Sea.

Big Valley owner and captain Gary Edwards fished commercially, and also leased his ship for scientific research. NOAA officials said naming the buoy after the Big Valley is a way to thank Edwards and strengthen the connection between NOAA and the fishing community.

NOAA works in support of the fishing industry, said Bill Floering of the NOAA Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory (PMEL).

“The data we’re gathering is available for the industry, both in the fisheries assessment and the oceanography work that we do,” he said.

Oceanographer with NOAA PMEL in Seattle, Wash., Phyllis Stabeno explained the background and purpose of the buoy.

“NOAA, in partnership with the North Pacific Research Board, have been maintaining a series of moorings (buoys) on the Bering Sea shelf. There are four of them,” Stabeno said.

“The Southern mooring is called Peggy after Peggy Dyson. We’ve always had subsurface (underwater) moorings on the other three. We decided to change one of those into a surface mooring and it is called M4 for historical reasons. That is the mooring that is going to be named for the Big Valley,” she said.

Underneath the visible part of the buoy is an array of instruments that measure ocean temperature, salinity, fluorescence, count zooplankton and measure currents and nutrients. Data is sent back to the lab and put on a Web site for fishermen and others to use.

Floering said he went out several times with Edwards and the Big Valley recovering lost buoy parts with a remotely operated vehicle (ROV).

“We’d go out and deploy this ROV with a camera on it and find the parts that were still there and recover them,” Floering said, adding they had a high recovery rate.

He said Edwards was always interested in the scientists’ work.

“He wanted to know what we were doing and why we were doing it. He took a real personal interest in all the activities. He put 100 percent into getting the job done,” Floering said.

He added Edwards found unique solutions to facilitate their work. When something could not be done by conventional means, they put their heads together to find a solution.

“And we did. We had great success,” Floering said.

National Marine Fisheries Service fishery biologist Brad Stevens estimated the Big Valley buoy and equipment cost in the neighborhood of $100,000.

It will sit in about 72 meters of water and remain in the Bering Sea until October, when it will be removed for the winter.

Mirror writer Deanna Cooper may be reached via e-mail at dcooper@kodiakdailymirror.com.