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Members and Friends of the Central Gulf Coast Chapter of ASBPA:
We had a great calendar year of chapter meetings in 2019. We started the year with a wonderful presentation by Dr. Al Browder of Olsen Associates. The meeting, hosted at the University of South Alabama in March, was well attended and professionals learned about the history of beach building in Alabama. And what a history it has been! Truly a success story of complete beach management from nourishment to operations.
Our June meeting of the year took us west to Baton Rouge where LSU’s Center for River Studies hosted our event and treated attendees to a tour of the Lower Mississippi River model: truly an impressive facility! Our speaker from BOEM, Jessica Mallindine, gave a wonderful presentation on their Marine Minerals Program and provided a demonstration of their new sediment resource tool.
Last month’s meeting at the Frank Lloyd Write designed Charnley-Norwood house in Ocean Springs was lightly attended, but very well received. Dr. Joe Griffitt, Interim Director of the School of Ocean Science and Engineering at the University of Southern Mississippi was our speaker. Dr. Griffitt provided a tremendous opportunity to learn how policy decisions (management of the Mississippi River spillways and diversions) can have unintended and unfortunate consequences in coastal ecosystems, including the complete closure of all public beaches in an entire state for almost an entire summer!
You won’t want to miss our lunch and learn meetings in 2020. Please add the following dates to your calendars as placeholders. Meeting locations and speaker information will be distributed approximately one month prior to each meeting, but the date and time will not change.
March 19, 2020: 11:30 – 1:00 in Alabama
June 18, 2020: 11:30 – 1:00 in Louisiana
September 17, 2020: 11:30 – 1:00 in Mississippi