PENINSULA WOMAN: Moriarty gathers grants to keep marine life center afloat

PENINSULA WOMAN: Moriarty gathers grants to keep marine life center afloat
By Diane Urbani de la Paz
for Peninsula Woman
PORT ANGELES -- Deborah Moriarty lives in an ecosystem of diverse organisms: federal grant-makers, fourth- and fifth-graders, and this weekend, Crab & Seafood Festival-goers.

Her workplace, the Feiro Marine Life Center on City Pier, sits in the middle of today's feasting -- and through the rest of the year it's a hub for learning, thanks in large part to Moriarty's efforts.

As the Feiro's administrative and education coordinator, she's working to ensure the survival of this nonprofit aquarium and science center despite the struggling local economy.

Moriarty is the one on the Feiro's three-person paid staff who searches the sea of grant-awarding groups for new money.

Just last week, she dived into the proposals for two: a yearlong grant from the Marine Mammal Stranding Network, and the B-WET -- Bay Watershed Education Training -- funding to bring hundreds of grade-schoolers from the Crescent, Sequim and Port Angeles school districts on field trips and creekside walks.

So Moriarty spends a lot of time shut in her office, away from the water and the kids. But she seems to relish the hunt for fresh infusions of money, said Betsy Wharton, a member of the Feiro's board of directors.

"She is tireless," Wharton said. "Every time I talk to her, she's got an application in," for another grant.

Moriarty doesn't shy away from grant-makers she's never dealt with before, Wharton added.

Then there's the other element of her job, the part that gives her a shot of energy: interacting with visitors, many of whom happen upon the Feiro while awaiting the Victoria ferry.

People come from all over -- including from the country's vast, landlocked expanses -- so "this may be their only opportunity to learn something about the ocean [that] we take for granted," Moriarty said. "They're just passing through; they come in not expecting to learn. It's been an eye-opener to see how much education we can do," in a short window of time before the ferry horn blows.

Moriarty, with Feiro educator Bob Campbell and program assistant Kendra Fors, reminds people that the center's animals and plants all come from the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and specifically Port Angeles Harbor.

It's a hotbed of life we're living in, goes the message; now's your chance to go out and explore it.

Moriarty, of course, sees lots of kids -- and adults -- with iPods and cellphones and BlackBerrys. She still believes they can't hold a candle to the multisensory feast outdoors.

"There are a lot of distractions," she said. "But nothing can replicate being outside, having your feet in the sand," on Hollywood Beach.

"We learn our place in the world best when we're out in it," she said.

Moriarty, 48, grew up on a ranch in rural northern British Columbia, where her father homesteaded outside Fort St. John.

She went to the University of British Columbia in Vancouver to study marine science and oceanography, and then to work for the British Columbia Tourism Department and later the British Columbia Winter Games.

"Both of these jobs gave me great insight into working with volunteers and with visitors -- very applicable to my work at Feiro," she said.

But as a young woman out of college, she was also hungry to travel the world.

She took off for Europe, and in Portugal she met Stephen Moriarty, an attorney from Washington, D.C. They married 25 summers ago and moved to Joyce to raise a family.

Moriarty chose to stay home to bring up Louise, now 23, Jack, 22, Katie, 20, and Elisabeth, 16.

When all four were in high school, their mother went back to school. In 2005, she finished her bachelor's in environmental policy and planning at Peninsula College, through Western Washington University's Huxley College of the Environment.

Having volunteered at the Feiro soon after arriving on the Peninsula, Moriarty knew the center's history: the late Art Feiro, a high school science teacher, built it in 1981 after obtaining federal grant money and holding local fundraisers. The city of Port Angeles provided for the center for 28 years, but then the recession hit hard, precipitating deep cuts.

The Feiro's average annual operating budget is about $120,000, Moriarty said; the city contributes $20,500 of that.

"This past year, because of a number of extra awards for facility upgrades and education programs, our budget was quite high at $193,000," Moriarty added.

What she didn't say is that she helped win those awards.

"She's good at that. She digs around [for a new grant] and chases it down," said Campbell. "Grant-writing is a nerve-wracking thing. She worries and doesn't sleep until she's done with it."

The center just received another grant, Moriarty added, from the Bonneville Power Administration to fund installation of solar panels.

"It will reduce our utility bill," she said, "and give us another opportunity for education."

This past week, Moriarty was crunching numbers on the Marine Mammal Stranding Network application. If she's successful, the network funding would create a new position for a certified worker to deal with whales and other mammals stranded anywhere in the Strait of Juan de Fuca district, from Diamond Point to the West End's Pacific beaches.

She's also finishing the B-WET grant proposal, which she hopes will fund watershed walks along Peabody Creek for elementary-school-age children.

These field trips are up-close, hands-on experiences that reveal the changes in the creek ecosystem, from the stream's natural setting to its urban stretch.

The youngsters also learn how to care for their local creek and ocean.

"We have four simple messages," Moriarty said. "Pick up your dog waste; wash the car on the lawn, since the ground is the best filter; reduce fertilizers and pesticides on your garden, and only rain down the storm drain."

Soap suds, paint and motor oil shouldn't be allowed to run off down the street because, she explains, "it all ends up right here in our harbor."

Last year, then fifth-grader Austin Moore of Port Angeles summed up the Feiro message on a poster that Moriarty is holding onto.

"We are all connected by the water of the world," the poster reads. At the bottom, smaller: "Think about what you do."

Moriarty hopes to share that message today with a larger-than-typical Sunday audience: that of the crab festival, which runs from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

The Feiro receives a portion of proceeds from the event, and every little bit helps. But there's another benefit out there: a clearer understanding that Cancer magister -- the Dungeness crab -- belongs to a wider web of Port Angeles Harbor residents, from plankton to humans.

"We always ask that question," as October approaches, Moriarty said: "How to gently educate people at the crabfest."

There's a lot of bad news about the ocean out there, she acknowledged. It can get overwhelming. But Moriarty finds renewal in simple conversations, connections with people who come into the Feiro.

"When I get away from my desk and talk to one person," she said, that's what lifts the spirits.

Then she quoted Elisabeth, her youngest, who likes to say that her mom is "trying to save the world, one crustacean at a time."

And, here on the pier, one person at a time.