A $1,851,000 contract for constructing a new Federal fisheries laboratory, library and conference center in Seattle, Wash., has been awarded by the Department of the Interior to John H. Seller Construction Company of Seattle, the Department announced.
The new buildings will be of reinforced concrete and masonry will be adjacent to the existing fisheries laboratory of the Fish and Wildlife Service at 2725 Montlake Boulevard, on the shore of Lake Union. The new structures will relieve overcrowding of the present laboratory which was built in 1931 and which has been the center for biological and technological research and the base for an extensive exploratory fishing program conducted in the waters off the northwestern States.
The new Laboratory building will be four stories high and will contain 65,000 square feet of floor space. The library-conference structure will have three stories and will provide 17,000 square feet of space. The buildings are to be completed within a year and a half after the work starts.
Research on developing new uses for fish-oil derivatives will be one of the projects to be conducted in the technological section of the new laboratory. A water temperature control system will permit biologists to make long-needed studies of the effect of temperature upon the survival of fish eggs, fry, and fingerlings. Better opportunity also will be provided for determining the value of trace elements in the environment, for anti-biotic research and for ecological studies
The fishery laboratories are administered by the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries, Fish and Wildlife Service.
