Pryce Receives “Champion of Women’s Health Award”from Health Care Advocacy Groups

April 21, 2008

Pryce Congratulates OSU, Wetland Research Park for International Designation

Wetland Research Park Named Ramsar Wetland of International Importance
Pryce Has Been Strong, Effective Advocate for OSU Facility on Capitol Hill

Washington , DC – Today, Congresswoman Deborah Pryce (R-Columbus) congratulated The Ohio State University and university researchers at the Olentangy River Wetland Research Park (ORWRP) for the park’s designation as a Ramsar Wetland of International Importance. On Tuesday, the ORWRP becomes one of just twenty-four American wetlands deemed worthy of the designation out of more than 1700 sites worldwide currently on the Ramsar list.

Pryce has successfully championed the ORWRP in Congress in recent years, most notably in her support for federal funding to utilize the facility to research the growing environmental problem of hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico. Pryce secured $500,000 for the research project in the FY 2006 Interior Appropriations Bill, and successfully led the effort to ensure future funding by authorizing ORWRP in the Water Resources Development Act of 2007. In a letter to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service earlier this year, Pryce asked the federal agency to officially nominate the ORWRP for the Ramsar Wetlands of International Importance listing.

“I am thrilled to learn of the wetland research park’s designation and commend everyone associated with the facility for the groundbreaking work being done there,” said Pryce. “As we celebrate Earth Day, it is fitting that the facility finally receives the national and international acclaim it deserves for helping to understand and solve some of our planet’s most pressing environmental problems.”

“OSU continues to demonstrate to the international scientific community that it remains at the apex of innovation and understanding,” Pryce added. “It is both appropriate and necessary that the federal government continue to partner with such proven institutions like OSU through the appropriations process to help hasten scientific breakthroughs on matters benefiting our people and our planet.”

The Convention on Wetlands, signed in Ramsar, Iran, in 1971, is an intergovernmental treaty providing the framework for national action and international cooperation for the conservation and wise use of wetlands and their resources. The criteria used to determine if a site is worthy of a Ramsar listing can be found at http://www.ramsar.org/key_criteria.htm. While meeting one of the nine criteria makes a wetland worthy of Ramsar consideration, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife asserts that the ORWRP meets five of these criteria.

The ORWRP was designed as a site where researchers can study processes in rivers and wetlands and investigate if and how we can create and restore these systems for habitat enhancement, flood control, and water quality improvement. Now, more than a decade into its existence, the ORWRP is recognized internationally as a unique living laboratory, and information and understanding derived from it is critical in finding solutions to the myriad ecological and hydraulic problems facing our planet.

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