NEW ORLEANS, LA – To provide access to data being collected in response to the opening of the Bonnet Carre Spillway and the Morganza Floodway, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), created a monitoring website that is now online.
The website allows users to spatially view data from monitoring stations across southern Louisiana. Information is provided by multiple organizations, currently including USACE, USGS, the Louisiana Office of Coastal Protection and Restoration (OCPR), the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources (MDMR), Louisiana State University (LSU), the Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation (LPBF), the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources (LDNR), and the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (LDEQ).
“This website is truly a collaborative effort, and could not have been completed without the partnership of so many federal, state, and local agencies, as well as non-governmental organizations,” said environmental engineer Danny Wiegand.
The data, which will be updated as new information becomes available, is organized on a map by colored points that correspond to the respective agency that gathered it. By clicking on any given point, users are given a brief description of the data as well as a link that they can go to for more detailed information. In addition to providing information to the general public, it will be used by various agencies to assist in evaluating potential changes in the ecosystems due to the opening of the structures.
A similar site was developed during the 2008 opening of the Bonnet Carre Spillway. That site is still active at http://deltas.usgs.gov/BonnetCarre.aspx.