After years of quietly accumulating an expert team in Boulder, a new national science lab has finally been promised the funding necessary to begin fulfilling its mission of creating a web of environmental observatories that will stretch across the country.
The National Ecological Observatory Network first planted itself in Boulder more than three years ago with just a half-dozen employees. The fledgling lab has since hired about 140 staffers who have been working to create the vision, plans and documentation that are necessary to win funding from the National Science Foundation.
Last week, NSF announced that the lab would receive $434 million to construct a network of 62 observatories, starting with $18 million for fiscal year 2011.
“People have been whispering about NEON for a long time,” said observatory spokeswoman Jennifer Walton. “But there’s been this sort of really long wait-and-see-what-happens period, which has finally ended.”
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