2024 Tulane Engineering Forum School of Science and Engineering

Speakers

Brad Miller

Brad Miller has been working for the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, formally the Department of Natural Resources Coastal Restoration Division, for over 20 years. He currently serves as a Project Manager and has overseen numerous large scale restoration and protection projects including beach restoration, marsh creation, and river diversion projects. Brad has been involved with the River Reintroduction Into Maurepas Swamp project since 2006.

Presentation Description

Revitalizing the Maurepas Swamp – Fixing a 100 Year Old Problem

The Maurepas Swamp, located between Baton Rouge and New Orleans on I-10, has been disconnected from the Mississippi River for nearly a century. The Maurepas Swamp Project (MSP) is designed to rehabilitate 45,000 acres of degraded and submerging wetlands. The project has been in planning and design for over 20 years. The 5.5 mile diversion channel is directly adjacent to the recently funded West Shore Lake Pontchartrain Hurricane and Storm Damage Risk Reduction Project (WSLP). Both are major, landscape level projects supporting CPRA’s primary goals (Protection and Restoration) and implementing them in tandem is mutually advantageous. Major infrastructure engineering challenges including penetrating the MS River levee, two railroad crossings, and multiple State and Federal highway crossings add to the engineering challenges. Recent incorporation of the MSP to be used as mitigation to offset impacts to wetlands from the WSLP have allowed the two projects to move forward in unison, requiring robust coordination among myriad project teams. CPRA has many dedicated partners from academia, consulting, and other State and Federal agencies that have worked hard to identify success criteria, model future scenarios, develop operational regimes, and optimize integrated design to deliver the projects.

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