The Savannah River Ecology Laboratory, the University’s research facility near Aiken, S.C., received a $2.6 million federal grant, enabling the facility to create 12 new full-time positions.

The grant, provided by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, will also restore about 16 full-time University researcher positions.

“My realistic goal is to rebuild to 75 to 80 people,” said Carl Bergmann, co-director of SREL and the grant’s principal investor.

The facility’s peak in employment came in 2004-2005 with 200 employees but has now declined 70 percent to 50 employees.

“It will take decades to rebuild,” Bergmann said, of reaching its peak number of employees again.

Controversy surrounded SREL in 2007 when federal funding from the Department of Energy was decreased substantially. The facility was forced to consider closing its doors but received enough funding to stay open.

“The DOE funding was as high as $12 million,” said Ken McLeod, co-director of SREL. “The University stepped in to help and provided more funding.”

Initially, Bergmann said, the University wanted to give $1 million to the facility, which is a soft-money organization. A soft-money organization receives its funding from grants and donations.

In 2008, the University gave $2 million to the facility after more funds were requested, Bergmann said.

“UGA funding is provided as a temporary bridge,” said David Lee, vice president of research at the University, adding that the expectation is the University will stop providing as much once SREL is on their feet.

“There was a lot of finger-pointing,” Bergmann said. “People were looking for someone to blame.”

“The University was a savior, not the cause of the problem,” McLeod said.

Bergmann said the facility gave back some of the $400,000 that it was given from the University this year.

The stimulus grant SREL received through the ARRA on Sept. 30 will give it enough money to continue for two years.

“The grant has given [us] two years to learn how to support ourselves,” Lee said.

But the future is still uncertain for the facility.

“It’s not a given, we don’t know. no center does,” Bergmann said. “That’s the way the soft-money game works.”

The Savannah River Site, which opened in 1951, is one of seven facilities in the country where nuclear weapons were made.

Eugene Odum, an ecology professor who taught at the University from the 1940s until the 1980s was the first to receive a government grant to work at the Savannah River Site in 1950. Since that time, the University has had the largest presence at the site, though other schools do research there as well.

The grant will also go toward restarting projects and starting new projects.

“Many projects have been totally lost,” McLeod said of the effects of the budget cuts.

One project, by conservation biologist Tracey Tuberville and ecologist David Scott, is a long-term study of reptiles, such as turtles and alligators, and the risks of long-term contaminant exposure.

The SREL received the Guiness World record in 2000 for having the longest ongoing study of reptiles.

Another project, by ecologists J. Vaun McArthur and Dean Fletcher, will examine how trace metals introduced to rivers by human activity and their effect on organisms.

In a project with Eastern Illinois University, SREL biologist Larry Bryan will study what happens with environmental contaminants that have been released on the Savannah River Site.

“We want to see what would happen if that situation was here,” Lee said about the 2008 Tennessee Valley incident in which coal-burning plants released large quantities of contaminants into the water.

The next goal of SREL is to establish stronger ties with the University’s campus.

“It would be nice to have more communication with the campus,” Bergmann said, adding the DOE has encouraged SREL to do so.

“It requires interest and participation from researchers on campus,” Lee said.