Watershed Initiative Holds Webinars
America’s Watershed Initiative (AWI) conducted two webinars in the last week of June on ways to improve the entire Mississippi River basin. The group brings together diverse stakeholders to discuss system-wide challenges and solutions.
The webinar featured presentations by Steve Buan, senior hydrologist for the North Central River Forecast Center in Chanhassen, Minn., and Maj. Gen. Michael Walsh, former deputy commanding general for civil and emergency operations for the Corps of Engineers.
Other participants included Katie Pardee, water business group Quality Program Administrator at engineering consulting firm HDR, and Larry Weber, Chair in Hydraulics in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and director of Hydroscience and Engineering at the University of Iowa.
Newly-appointed executive director Frank Morton opened the webinar by noting the D+ grade given U.S. waterways infrastructure by the American Society of Civil Engineering (ASCE). He mentioned this spring’s record-setting floods across all the Midwestern river systems, noting that they have already sent 65 percent more water to the Gulf of Mexico than the recent yearly average. One of AWI’s goals is to help secure $2 billion in additional waterways infrastructure funding.
Buan, who has spent more than 30 years in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, then discussed a series of charts showing upward trending temperatures and rainfalls since the 1970s. While average annual rainfall has increased by 8 percent since then, he said, that translated into a 28 percent increase in annual average flow. “The water ecosystem is seeking a new normal,” he said. All quadrants of the upper Midwest are seeing higher rainfalls.
Since the late 90s, Buan said, more than 900,000 cubic yards of material has been dredged each year in the St. Paul Engineer District. More analysis is required to fully understand how commercial use will be affected by this, he said.
Walsh, who thanked Buan for his “startling” presentation, now heads his own consulting firm. He spoke about tech innovations and championed multi-state water compacts and initiatives like the Colorado River Compact, Susquehanna River Compact and North Atlantic Coast Comprehensive Study as a way of facilitating regional and basin-wide solutions to water challenges.
Walsh wondered whether the center of the country will be “last at the trough” of federal dollars for infrastructure.
Morton Named Executive Director
The AWI appointed Morton executive director in June.
From 1990 to 2012, Morton served as founder and president of Turn Services, a full-service barge towing, shifting, fleeting, cleaning, repair, and barge inspection company operating in eight locations on the Lower Mississippi River. He has served in a variety of leadership roles with the American Waterways Operators, including a term as national chairman in 2014-2015, as well as on its Leadership Council, Executive Committee, and National Board of Directors.
Morton is also a member of Waterways Council Inc., the Gulf Intracoastal Canal Association, and the Louisiana Association of Waterways and Shipyards, among other professional memberships. In 2016, he was named the Propeller Club Port of New Orleans Maritime Person of the Year.
“In this role, Frank will use his interest and experience in all aspects of the Mississippi River Watershed to support AWI’s mission of convening diverse stakeholders to collaborate to chart a course for the future of the watershed,” the AWI said in a notice.
