BLUFFTON -- Beaufort County's state lawmakers say they will fight to keep state funding in place for the Waddell Mariculture Center.

For the second year, Gov. Mark Sanford has proposed eliminating state funding for the center, which conducts research on fish and shellfish in efforts to restock area waterways and create more effective ways to increase commercial production of various species.

Sanford's budget proposal would eliminate $936,821 for mariculture activity throughout the state. But local legislators have vowed to keep the center's operations intact, and the version of the budget heading to the state House of Representatives doesn't include any funding cuts for the facility.

"I think he's going to have a fight on his hands," state Sen. Scott Richardson, R-Hilton Head Island, said of Sanford's proposal. The center "has a broad range of support. I don't know if there is anybody but the governor's office going after it."

Last year, the center received $700,000 from the state, including $400,000 for repairs, after a debate about whether the center should be funded at all.

Charles Farmer, a state Department of Natural Resources spokesman, said the department, which operates the mariculture center, has provided information on the center to the House committee studying the budget and will continue to do so as the House and Senate work to finalize the state spending plan.

"We are proud of the work that has been conducted at the (center)," Farmer said, "and will plan our future activities based on the final budget that passes the General Assembly and is signed by the governor."

Will Folks, the governor's spokesman, said under Sanford's budget proposal, the center would be allowed to continue to operate only if it can do so without receiving any state money. Private industry should support the facility.

"It's a center that we'd like to see continue operating," Folks said. "The question is, is it something, given the education, health care and public safety charges that we face as a state, that we can continue to fund with state dollars?"

In addition to state money, the center also gets funding from grants spread among researchers at several different state facilities working together on the same projects.

"South Carolina simply does not realize significant returns on this investment, as it becomes increasingly difficult to compete with foreign competitors and states like Mississippi with established industries," according to the executive budget proposal.

State Rep. Bill Herbkersman, R-Bluffton, disagrees that the money spent on research about how to breed fish and programs to stock local waterways are not benefiting the state financially.

Herbkersman said every time an angler spends money on gas, ice or equipment to fish in the Lowcountry, that is partly due to the mariculture center's activities. The center has released thousands of red drum and cobia into local waterways as a way to study and increase the populations.

David Harter, a member of the Hilton Head Island Sportfishing Club and board member of Friends of the Rivers, called the mariculture center "a very important institution" for anglers. He said many of the center's federal grants would dry up without the state providing matching funds required to get the federal money.

The cuts, Harter said, would "destroy the mariculture center here.

"You've got to put in money to make money," he said.