Oregon Coast Community College’s Aquarium Science's Newport facility is a ruckus – there’s jack hammers tearing apart the concrete floors, empty tanks in the sun outside, caution tape across the doors and all the animals are gone.
Last month, about 150 creatures – fish, sharks, sea stars, moon jellies, a pond turtle and a myriad of fresh and saltwater animals – were carefully hoisted out of the building and onto trucks in order to start a $2.3 million renovation project funded by the $33 million bond voters passed in 2024.
The 16-year-old building is getting new water-resistant flooring, improved temperature control and lighting better suited for an environment with high humidity and tanks filled with animals.
The project has a quick turn-around and is anticipated to finish in September, just in time to welcome the largest number of aquarium science students the school has ever had.
Students in the aquarium science program have lectures, reports, essays and PowerPoints just like any college student. But this building is where they learn to take care of animals.
Large dark stains and cracks have formed along the floors and some of the overhead lightbulbs are out – issues caused by being in an environment with a lot of water. “… you can see exactly where the tanks sat,” said OCCC aquarium director Steve Vogel.
The program is adaptive to what students want to specialize in from jellyfish and coral to turtles and sharks. Some students have interests in other animals and one student took care of poison dart frogs, said lab technician Claire Smith. They also can learn aquaponics or aquaculture but most come to the program with the intention of someday working in an aquarium in Newport or Monterey, Calif., Smith said.
Part of the job of taking care of animals is making sure they control their environments as much as possible to make sure they aren’t stressed, Vogel said. Students and staff monitor the water temperature and aeration closely, check on animals routinely and take their responsibility of care seriously.
But the building didn’t make their job easy.
Being on the Oregon coast, the weather is fairly temperate. But when temperatures reach outside the normal range, having a fresh air building isn’t ideal to house animals with specific temperature needs. One summer, when temperatures climbed to the 90s, students and staff froze buckets of ice and put them in the tanks to make sure the animals stayed cool.
“We’re aquarists, we’re resourceful,” Smith said.
By August, the concrete floors will be replaced and covered with an epoxy. Lights that are failing will be replaced with ones more suited for high humidity and new HVAC systems will keep the space cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter. A new camera system will also be put into place to have better surveillance on the animals when people aren’t in the building to monitor them, said Chris Rogers, the college’s facilities director.
But before construction could begin, the animals had to be removed – and it was a feat. Most of the 150 animals were transported in Styrofoam coolers on trucks – some crawling along at 10 miles per hour. Now the animals are in tanks at the Hatfield Marine Science Center and the Oregon Coast Aquarium’s holding facility.
College staff take care of the animals at the two locations. Fortunately, the two spaces aren’t far and have everything the animals need. Staff stock the refrigerators there with food the animals need and check on them regularly, just as they would if they were housed at the Aquarium Science facility.
Construction is on a tight timeline to start and finish this summer, so that the building can be ready for fall classes.
This fall’s aquarium science program will have 26 students – 10 more than last year. The renovations are expected to be complete by the end of September with fall classes starting Sept. 15.
This story was originally published on LincolnChronicle.org and is used with permission.