NOAA sets Pacific home port at Newport, Ore.

NOAA sets Pacific home port at Newport, Ore.    The U.S. government’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has picked Oregon’s Port of Newport to be the home for its new Marine Operations Center-Pacific, starting in 2011 pending the signing of a 20-year lease.
   NOAA’s requirements for the new site include office and warehouse space, berthing for four ships and up to two visiting ships. The agency’s Pacific operation comprises about 175 employees, including more than 110 officers and crew assigned to the NOAA ships McArthur II, Miller Freeman, Rainier and Bell M. Shimada, a new fisheries survey vessel expected to join the NOAA fleet in 2010.
   “We look forward to reuniting NOAA’s West Coast research ships and support personnel at one facility and being an active part of the community,” said Rear Adm. Jonathan W. Bailey, director of the NOAA Office of Marine and Aviation Operations and the NOAA Corps, in a statement on Tuesday.