Current affairs: The Water Institute of the Gulf has hired Mead Allison as director of physical processes and sediment systems. Allison comes to the Baton Rouge-based nonprofit science institute from the University of Texas at Austin, where he served as associate director of the Institute for Geophysics in the Jackson School of Geosciences. He has researched river delta systems for nearly 25 years and is recognized as one of the foremost experts on the Mississippi River’s sediment transport processes, says The Water Institute, which has more on Allison’s hire at its website here.
On the stand: Two BP rig supervisors and a former BP executive were scheduled to be arraigned today on criminal charges stemming from the deadly Deepwater Horizon rig explosion and the company’s response to the massive 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. BP well site leaders Robert Kaluza and Donald Vidrine were indicted this month on manslaughter charges in the death of 11 rig workers. The federal indictment accuses them of disregarding abnormal, high-pressure readings that should have been glaring indications of trouble just before the blowout of BP’s Macondo well. The full story is here.
Buy it now: The Office of State Purchasing has issued a request for proposals from private-sector service providers to establish and conduct “reverse auctions” for goods and services bought by the state. “A reverse auction is designed to save taxpayer dollars because, unlike ordinary auctions in which buyers compete and drive up prices, vendors participating in a reverse auction will compete in a real-time, online environment that drives prices down,” says Commissioner of Administration Kristy Nichols. The RFP is available online here.
