The Amite River Basin Commission (ARBC) met for their monthly meeting on September 8th, 2026 during which they heard a few presentations along with comprehensive reports on outreach efforts and upcoming projects in addition to progress reports on ongoing projects.
LSU Receives ARBC’s Support
ARBC first heard a presentation from LSU’s Dr. Zuo "George" Xue on two proposals focused on modeling and forecasting technology in partnership with Ascension Parish.
Both proposals seek to extend water level forecasting in the ungauged reaches of the Amite basin using NASA satellite observations.
The first proposal will be for LSU to collaborate with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to look into the most recent technologies and attempt to recreate them as “AI-driven” models in Ascension Parish, Amite River Basin, and interested parishes. LSU is asking for ARBC to write a letter of support and to help define what forecasts should produce, review drafts and say whether they are useful, share basin records, and connect LSU with other parishes in the basin.
The second proposal will be for LSU to collaborate with the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the University of Texas at Austin to develop an “AI-ready dataset” for parish and county level forecasting. LSU will require a letter of collaboration between ARBC and LSU for NSF’s review.
“Both opportunities address lots of community engagement, so that is why I think a collaboration between LSU and ARBC will help us a lot to better apply our expertise at LSU to better service the Amite River Basin,” Dr. Xue explained.
“I think that we have gotten to a degree of accuracy to where we are beginning to use these AI predictions and models in our preparations of what we do and how we handle storms in Ascension. It's getting to a level of accuracy now that we are starting to implement it in the way we handle storms,” Commissioner Christopher Knotts added.
“We talked about non-structural activities, so those things that we want to do that are not construction, that will lower flood risk – this would fall into that category,” ARBC Chief Advisor Paul Sawyer told the commission. “So this is consistent with our efforts to partner with other entities to lower flood risk in the Amite River Basin.”
The commission voted unanimously to approve the letter of support and letter of collaboration.
ARBC Takes Steps to Join LA Outdoors Forever Program
Another presentation served to note that ARBC has successfully submitted their pre-application to the Louisiana Outdoors Forever Program.
The program focuses on using funding to support projects and land acquisitions, and conservation initiatives to keep portions of Louisiana available for outdoor recreation and perpetuity.
ARBC requested $681,803 from the program to match funds ARBC already has in place from capital outlay and NRCS funds.
Over the next few months, the projects submitted will be either rejected or selected by the program’s review board and then a full application will be submitted for the selected projects to continue.
“The funding is hand-in-glove with what we are doing. We’re already doing habitat restoration anyway. What we call restoration work fits within the definition of what they are trying to accomplish in their outdoors program,” Sawyer noted. “Having that partner… adds to our credibility and our grant-getting abilities in the future… to support what we intend to do and what is in our master plan.”
Report on Outreach Efforts
The meeting then moved to hear a report from Sawyer, focusing on the outreach efforts that ARBC has hosted or participated in during the last month as well as the upcoming projects and proposals that the ARBC can hopefully expect to see sometime in the future.
Sawyer explained that the efforts in the Upper Amite River Restoration Project are continuing with a new maintenance solicitation contract and an upcoming scope of work with the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS).
The scope of work will allow the ARBC to draw federal funds from the NRCS that will allow the ARBC to build a “tool box” to assess and plan for each new property acquired in the future and also initiate construction.
“We hope in the near future to have additional properties to share with commissioners,” Sawyer added.
Sawyer then discussed the efforts made so far to outreach to communities and share information about projects and current progress on flood management.
In the past month alone, ARBC participated in the Greater Baton Rouge Civic Association’s annual Flood Summit, which was a retrospective of the 2016 flood with several important leaders in their respective fields, and participated in the Comite River Diversion Canal monthly meeting.
ARBC also participated in the Comite River Diversion Canal monthly meeting, held a radio interview with State Senator Regina Barrow on her radio show for the 2016 flood retrospective, and presented to the St. Helena Parish Police Jury in “an ongoing effort to maintain contact and engagement with citizens and parish governments.”
Finally, ARBC participated in a Louisiana Joint Committee event discussing fiscal affairs where they discussed capital outlay projects that have been dormant.
“The legislature is considering eliminating or repurposing funds from capital outlay projects that have not spent those dollars that have been allocated for two years or more,” Sawyer explained.
Sawyer noted that future plans for ARBC will include further property considerations, proposals of potential nonstructural (non-construction) activities, preparations for continued capital outlay requests, and a meeting with Commissioner of Administration Taylor Barras during the week of September 23 to discuss Upper Amite and other opportunities for future projects.
Another meeting that will be held in October with the Commissioner of Insurance and the Army Corps of Engineers will revolve around touring flood control features to help with “instructing underwriters, insurance companies, and reinsurance companies about the prevalence and nature and impact of all of the flood control projects we have going on in South Louisiana.”
“We believe those projects are not being fully accounted for when underwriters are measuring risk in our respective regions and we believe that that’s irresponsible and they need to see for themselves projects that are underway,” Sawyer added.
Maintenance Services Sought for St. Helena Site
Following this, the ARBC unanimously approved to proceed with the solicitation of maintenance services for the St. Helena site of the Upper Amite River Basin Restoration Project.
Maintenance will be focused on mowing and clearing roads, parking areas, and open areas, clearing vegetation around existing facilities, and removal and proper disposal of trash, drums, old equipment, and other debris or obstructions.
“If we’re successful here, we can maybe implement what has worked here abroad as we look to purchase other abandoned sand and gravel pits and put them to use for retention, restoration, and conservation,” ARBC President John Clark noted.
“We will continue to acquire as many sites as possible because when we accumulate more and more sites and we do more restoration work on those sites, we’re coming as close as we can to imitate the effects of a reservoir… within the natural conditions of the Amite River,” Sawyer explained.
“In their industrial state, [the sand and gravel pits] lead to flooding. By restoring the natural conditions of those areas by using natural enhancements… we are creating flood control, flood risk reduction benefits by slowing the river down and, in many cases, by temporarily storing the water,” Sawyer concluded.
ARBC Moves to Defer Railroad Easement Agreement
Afterwards, ARBC Legal Council Larry Bankston provided the commission with reasoning to defer Resolution 1203 concerning the Railroad Easement Agreement at Lilly Bayou Crossing, citing that the commission has yet to receive the documentation detailing the agreement between the KDS Railroad and the Army Corps of Engineers regarding the bridge’s maintenance.
“We need that particular document,” Bankston noted, “to understand what obligations have been entered into as it relates to this request for easement.”
As such, the ARBC voted unanimously to defer the item until those documents can be sourced and studied by the commissioners and their legal council.
NRCS Scope of Work Approved
Afterwards, the commission unanimously approved the previously mentioned NRCS scope of work that will act as a proposal to NRCS on how ARBC plans to spend the funding already allocated and available to them as well as how the money will be spent on projects currently underway and set to begin in the future.
