Coastal Waters Laboratory

The Coastal and Marine Institute Laboratory (CMIL), formerly known as the Coastal Waters Laboratory, is an academic laboratory operated by the College of Sciences of San Diego State University (SDSU), in the Point Loma district of San Diego, California.

It is located on a coastal site at northern San Diego Bay, on the former grounds of the closed San Diego Naval Training Center, now part of the Liberty Station redevelopment project in Point Loma.

Research
The Laboratory focuses research on environmental and ecological problems on the Southern California Bight coastline in southern California, caused by urbanization in the coastal environment at land-water interfaces, such as estuaries.

Current Research Projects

 * Coastal GIS Center
 * Wetlands Restoration Center (Pacific Estuarine Research Lab)
 * Coastal and Marine Ecology Group
 * Beach Water Quality Center

HPWREN
Data is transferred back from the Laboratory via the High Performance Research and Education Network (HPWREN).

Equipment

 * 50,000 square foot Coastal Waters Laboratory
 * 10,000 square feet devoted to outdoor aquaria and a greenhouse
 * Continuous flow seawater system from San Diego Bay
 * Large hall for classes, lectures, and workshops on resource issues
 * Boat maintenance and SCUBA diving facility
 * Specialized analytical, research, and wet laboratories, including:
 * Coastal Zone GIS Laboratory
 * Virus and Pathogen Laboratory

Coastal Zone Campus
Adjacent to the CMIL laboratory complex is another research laboratory, operated by the Metropolitan Wastewater Department (MWWD) of the City of San Diego, in order to consolidate marine monitoring and analytical operations.

Together, this has created a “Coastal Zone Campus” on San Diego Bay to allow mutual access to and sharing of new and innovative research ideas and activities among federal regional, and local entities, and nationally known scientists and experts, in order to exchange information related to the coastal zone environment.