Plans for a 27.6-acre riverfront Water Campus expected to be unveiled this morning by Gov. Bobby Jindal and other state, city and community leaders will be a game changer—not only in terms of the economic development benefits it will bring to the Nicholson Drive corridor, but because of the world-class researchers and engineering professionals it is expected to attract to the state.
LED Secretary Stephen Moret says the proposed Water Campus south of the Mississippi River bridge will contribute to the creation of 20,000 to 45,000 jobs in the water management sector over the next two decades. “It would be difficult to overstate the economic potential of this exciting development,” Moret says.
Officials familiar with the project describe the Water Campus as a research park with private sector involvement that will focus solely on coastal restoration and sustainability—a subject no other entity is tackling on this same scale. Research will be at the center of everything that goes on at the Water Campus, which will house researchers from the Water Institute of the Gulf, LSU and elsewhere, as well as the Coastal Preservation and Restoration Authority and engineering and design firms. The first facility to be built on the campus is a $16 million small-scale model of the Mississippi River from Donaldsonville to the Gulf.
The 90-by-120-foot model will include more than 200 computerized panels that will simulate the movement of the river and help researchers study, for example, how to move fresh river water into the adjacent basins to prevent erosion. BRAF will donate the property for the facility to LSU, which will operate it.
“This is a tremendous research opportunity for us,” says LSU President King Alexander. “It is also a recruitment tool that will help us to attract top faculty and top graduate students.”
A model that CPRA Chairman Garret Graves and Moret point to as comparable to their vision for the Water Campus is Deltares in the Netherlands, an independent institute that studies water issues, flooding and infrastructure. Louisiana officials have visited Deltares to learn how communities in the Netherlands have dealt with living in flood-prone areas at or below sea level.
Scientists conduct primary research at Deltares, and scientists and engineers based there do projects for public and private sector clients. Officials in Louisiana see the Water Campus, with its specialization on coastal issues, as operating in a similar fashion.
“The solutions and know-how are exportable,” says Graves. “So we see the opportunities here as two-fold: We are establishing a technical and scientific expertise where folks can help us solve our problems but also creating a place where folks from around the world can come to study and learn and take that knowledge back with them.”
For Louisiana, that will mean not only an opportunity for knowledge-sharing and branding but for economic development. Coastal studies was identified several years ago by LED officials as a “blue ocean,” or economic sector where there is opportunity for development and not a lot of competition. Officials say not only researchers but engineering and design firms are expected to be attracted to the campus because of the ideas and projects that will come out of it.
“The basic vision we have for water management is for Louisiana to become the Netherlands of the U.S.,” says Moret.
Already, the foundation for such a vision is in place. According to a study from Duke University, 42% of all national firms doing work on coastal restoration have a presence in Louisiana. With the Water Campus, that presence should continue to grow.
“That’s the highest concentration of technical firms in the country,” Graves says. “So we expect you are going to see coalescing at the campus of that private sector as well.”
