WEDA Gulf Coast Chapter To Meet In New Orleans

The Gulf Coast chapter of the Western Dredging Association (WEDA) is set to meet in the Crescent City November 7–9 at the Loews Hotel in downtown New Orleans. 

The three-day event will open with the Dredging 101 short course the afternoon of November 7, with a reception to follow. 

Day two will feature a wide range of topics, focusing on technologies shaping the dredging industry, specific waterway projects and environmental impacts and benefits of channel maintenance.

The day will open with a focus on the “evolution of flood control and navigation on the Mississippi” by Norma Jean Mattei, a member of the Mississippi River Commission and chair of the University of New Orleans Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering. Following that, the Gulf Coast chapter meeting will feature a WEDA Safety Commission panel discussion, an overview of “Project 11” at the Houston Ship Channel and a look at dredging within the Mobile Engineer District. During lunch, Sean Duffy, executive director of the Big River Coalition, will offer a look at the deepening of the Mississippi River Ship Channel.

The afternoon program will include technical sessions on using geospatial technologies to manage maritime infrastructure and on the geotechnical properties of mud-capped dredge pits. A representative from the Baton Rouge, La.-based Water Institute of the Gulf will look at using crowd-sourced and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers operational data to predict shoaling on the Mississippi River, while an engineer with Louisiana’s Coastal Protection & Restoration Authority (CPRA) will discuss operations and maintenance of coastal restoration dredging projects.

Day two will close with a pair of environmental-focused sessions, one looking at turtle mitigation strategies with TSHDs and the other recounting the creation bird islands in Louisiana with material dredged from Baptiste Collette Bayou.

An evening reception will be held aboard the City of New Orleans riverboat.

The morning of November 9 will feature a “collaboration day” between industry and representatives from the Corps and CPRA. The Galveston, New Orleans, Mobile, Memphis and Vicksburg districts will all be represented, along with CPRA.

The meeting will adjourn by noon, with closing remarks from Ken Myers, president of WEDA’s Gulf Coast chapter.

More information, including registration details, is available online at www.westerndredging.org.