HAMMOND – Southeastern Louisiana University announced today that it will provide independent, scientific monitoring of the Lake Maurepas ecosystem as part of Air Products’ work on its Louisiana Clean Energy Complex.
Air Products is to start preliminary studies on the viability of the Lake Maurepas area for a proposed ‘Blue Hydrogen’ production and carbon capture and permanent sequestration project. An essential component of these initial studies will be extensive environmental monitoring of the Lake Maurepas region by Southeastern, so that any impacts of this project can be understood, and data be made publicly available.
“Southeastern will be monitoring all facets of this project involving the lake to ensure up-to-date data and information are available. We will make all the data we record available to the public to ensure everyone’s right to know any findings,” said Dan McCarthy, dean of the College of Science and Technology.
“We realized from the outset that we needed comprehensive and independent monitoring of Lake Maurepas and said so publicly early in our work on this clean energy project,” said Louisiana Clean Energy Project Manager at Air Products Andrew Connolly. “We are pleased to have Southeastern serve this important role. Their scientists have been studying this ecosystem for decades and, with the Turtle Cove Environmental Research Station, they are singularly and best qualified to conduct this monitoring study.”
The scientists from Southeastern will be monitoring the marine life populations (fishes, crabs, shrimp) as well as the plant life in the surrounding wetlands, and also be on watch and studying any variations in water quality. All findings will be uploaded to a publicly accessible website that will be housed through Southeastern and which will be announced as it is developed and monitoring efforts have begun.
