TxTC Staff (00:01) Liv can you introduce yourself and your role at Lamar University? Liv Haselbach (00:06) Yeah, hi, my name is Leigh Fosselbach. I'm a professor in civil and environmental engineering at Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas. TxTC Staff (00:14) What's, can you describe a little bit of your background? How did you get to where you are at Lamar University? Liv Haselbach (00:23) Well, it's a long story. So ⁓ I originally was a practicing engineer for about 20 years. My degrees are civil engineering, chemical engineering, and then I eventually went back for a doctorate in environmental. I had my own ⁓ land development consulting firm in the Connecticut, New York area. And with it, I had ⁓ some major clients like some oil companies like Shell and Getty and Mobile. TxTC Staff (00:24) That's okay. Liv Haselbach (00:51) Starbucks and things like that where you take a national design and you put it on the land that's there. But with it, a lot of the stuff was environmental or ADA. Like for Amoco, I helped put in the ADA facilities for all the facilities in the state of Connecticut. But a lot of the other stuff is environmental and my focus has always been environmental. TxTC Staff (00:57) Mm-hmm. wow. Liv Haselbach (01:15) So eventually when my son left for college, I went back for my environmental degree with the hope in academia to put this environmental overlay on top of development and what started to be called sustainable development. I did teach just a lecture at Yale, but then I got a position at South Carolina, University of South Carolina to develop sustainable development classes. The same thing then at Washington State. And eventually I was asked to come down and chair the department. at Lamar University in Beaumont and that's where I am now. TxTC Staff (01:49) That's great. And how did Lamar get involved in this project with the Southeast Texas UIFL? Liv Haselbach (01:57) Well, that's also a long story. with my sustainable development, things that I do, my big focus is called low impact development. It's when you design sites so that when it rains at all, it follows the natural processes so that it decreases the amount of runoff and flooding. And that has always been one of my focus areas. So that was the one at Lamar, but I'm also a very applied person. and I had been hoping for a lot of more applied projects. And it just so happens that a hurricane Harvey came around, which was massive in the Belmont area. And two years afterwards, we had this tropical storm Imelda, which was amazing flooding. And it was actually a call from the University of Texas from Dr. David Maidment right after Imelda where he says, you know, you got to do something in Southeast Texas. So. He helped me along with many others start something what we call the Southeast Texas Flood Coordination Study. It's a communication hub for everyone, whether it's agencies, consultants, the universities working on in like an eight county region there in Southeast Texas on anything related to flooding. And it's been going on for the last six years. In fact, we've had well over 65 meetings so far as the years have gone on. coordination study, what was amazing about it when we started it up, as I said, it was the University of Texas and Lamar and we met with Texas Division of Emergency Management and TxDOT. TxDOT is the largest conveyor of stormwater in the state, you know, and obviously emergency management is a big issue there. And a few other groups and the Army Corps of Engineers also. TxTC Staff (03:34) Yeah. Liv Haselbach (03:43) and said, you want a communication hub? And basically they said, it's really nice to have regional communication hubs so that there's people who know the other people there and people don't get left out and that kind of stuff. But within six months, it grew to Department of Homeland Security being part of it, Texas Water Development Board being part of it, the USGS being part of it. Now more universities are part of it, the GLO. TxTC Staff (04:04) Wow. Liv Haselbach (04:10) connects to the flood coordination study. And all those groups are keeping an eye on what is going on in Southeast Texas and helping with it. I think one of the amazing things is after the issues with the flooding from Harvey and Imelda, the USGS on the national level was doing some pilot programs for hydrography, which is not just knowing where the water level is in a river, but knowing what the underground ⁓ landscape looks like, which is they need it for their volume calculations. And they did a pilot program in Southeast Texas. They were able to be one of the pilots for the country just because they knew how important it was here as we go forward. In addition, there's river authorities, there's drainage districts, there's cities, there's counties all connected together. And they very much appreciated getting the help from A UT Prairie View, Oak Ridge and other assorted groups that this project. And with it, even though we started it without funding, we just started it to help the community. Grant funding has come in. The river authorities were very happy to do it. One of the first national grants was with the University of Texas, ANOA won for how flood decision makers go with it. So with this, I started to have more collaborations, me and the other faculty with other universities. And we were very grateful that anyone would study. Southeast Texas because we need a lot of help and Lamar is a regional university. It doesn't have the some of the expertise you have at these larger universities or at national labs. And with it, we then put together a proposal with A ⁓ and Prairie View and UT and Oak Ridge for this ⁓ UIFL. And it was awarded and the flood coordination study is one of the backbones of it. I also want to say that we also started a flood sensor network because the Department of Homeland Security paired up with us to do that. And these were two of the big things that pushed this forward. And the third big thing in addition to design and working with communities on community issues was the fact that air pollution is a... TxTC Staff (06:08) Mm-hmm. Liv Haselbach (06:26) very important issue here with all the refineries and the petrochemical facilities and has known to be an issue in the past. I've taught air pollution control and we have several other professors at Lamar University interested in it and that was the other topic that we brought together for the UIFL. TxTC Staff (06:46) Wow, that's amazing. So you mentioned Southeast Texas a little bit. Can you tell us just what, from your perspective, what makes Southeast Texas unique? Why is it a place to be studied? Liv Haselbach (06:56) yeah, well, definitely. So the first thing is the natural environment. just so happens that. ⁓ Southeast Texas is swampy marshland. With the migratory birds, that's their resting stops, whether they're going south or north, it's a huge part of the birding trail. There's also these amazing things with duck hunting, the shrimping industry, other fishing industry, all the aquaculture that's around the area and the assorted recreation associated with it. In addition, it's it right there. have one of the national preserves, the big thicket National Preserve, Cyprus and Tupelo Marsh, freshwater marsh area and things. So you have that. on top of it, in 1901, they had this oil that came up called Spindle Top. And that was the first oil find in Texas. with that, the petrochemical industries grew up. ⁓ At this point, the two largest refineries in the country are located right in the Beaumont-Port Arthur area. It is massive petrochemical facilities from all different, whether it's agricultural or plastics and whatnot. In addition, the waterways there are one of the busiest waterways for transporting various petrochemical products, including exporting natural gas from the United States to other areas of the world. TxTC Staff (08:23) Hmm. Liv Haselbach (08:26) And then there's also a lumber industry. Eastern Texas is the wettest part of Texas and has a lot of logging operations. So we have those with it. And by the way, the Department of Defense for deploying equipment, their largest deployment of equipment on ships is out of the Beaumont ⁓ Port right there. So we have... TxTC Staff (08:28) Mm-hmm. wow. Liv Haselbach (08:48) amazing industry, amazing job opportunities, and amazing natural resources. And it comes together in this one point, which maybe has the oil because it has swampy and wet. And with that, have what I told you about Hurricane Harvey, Tropical Storm Enelda and all. It's been hit by a lot of storms and is frankly the wettest part of the state of Texas. So flooding's big and with all the industry, air pollution is also something that needs to be studied. And we also have really nice cultural things, lot of Cajun, a lot of crawfish, a lot of good food. TxTC Staff (09:30) Yeah, we've Liv Haselbach (09:31) ⁓ and TxTC Staff (09:31) had many meals Liv Haselbach (09:33) an amazing mixture of cultures that are right here in southeast Texas. TxTC Staff (09:36) Mm-hmm. that's I think you're hitting on a lot of what has been said by some of the other researchers in terms of the challenges, but you're because you've lived there for so long, really illuminating so many of the strengths and why the people love to live in that community. Could you talk a little bit about the particular area on the project that you focus, which was called activity areas? Could you kind of describe what that? is for the project and how you helped coordinate those efforts. Liv Haselbach (10:08) So the activity areas was more a way of compiling all the communication, whether it was internal to the researchers, whether the communication was educational to our grad students or undergrads, our postdocs, whether it was educational outside to other constituents such as high school demonstrations, whether it was education to the community, but most of that was TxTC Staff (10:17) Mm-hmm. Liv Haselbach (10:35) was under the purview of the equity theme that we had or the communication theme for the community. And so with it, you need to sort of make sure that everyone's connected in one way or the other. And the fact that the flood coordination study is a communication hub, it seemed reasonable that. TxTC Staff (10:50) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Liv Haselbach (10:55) that I would do part of the communication hub. But I also, therefore, attended almost all other meetings for the grant. as far as a research portion was more technical science, I worked on projects with the co-design team and just sort of helped with other issues that they needed in the other teams as they came to visit the area. TxTC Staff (10:56) Mm-hmm. Yeah, remember, feel like, yeah, was always there answering questions about Southeast Texas. And it's like Liev almost always had an answer to it. And we were talking to community members. Everyone also knew Liev. Yes. I was like, who is Liev? Liev is like this, like, kind of knows everything, very nice, just kind of the background, keeping things moving. So you mentioned you did a lot of stuff in your classrooms too with the project, like you had guest speakers and stuff like that. So can you open up a little bit? Liv Haselbach (11:44) Yeah, so we kept we get track of that. First of all, we had classes that the UIFL did internally among all the universities and all the universities and labs helped contribute to that. So we did have that more of a on a on official course, but but in actual classrooms we kept track of which courses at which universities maybe the students did. related to it. Like for instance, in the senior design class in civil and environmental engineering, one of their projects was on Pleasure Island in Port Arthur where an old abandoned golf course to bring in a design for facilities that if people wanted to use it for a park or for bird watching that there would be a restroom building, parking areas, ADA, handcuffed accessibility and what utilities might be needed to do that. I know that there were other projects by other university courses on planning for that area or planning in other things. This fall, I taught an air pollution, fundamentals of air pollution course. And with it, we brought in some of the ⁓ partners in industry that we've had connections over time. And we shared some of those lectures with TxTC Staff (12:43) Mm-hmm. Liv Haselbach (13:04) courses at the University of Texas and at Prairie View. So there's this gamut of where it's in. I know that in hydraulics class at Lamar University, did, ⁓ went over some of the projects associated on flooding for it. So it was just pervious concrete is one of my specialties and I've actually had a Fulbright in Brazil on it and I've worked on it for a year. It's a technology where the same land space is used for a structured surface for parking or low volume roads or sidewalks and storing water like a detention pond or retention pond underground. And so with those type of technologies, ⁓ They're not really applicable out in very rural areas, but in urban areas they can make a big difference. Instead of using so much land and extra land for detention basins, which outdoor ponds have issues with safety and mosquitoes and things like that, is you try and get the water underground so it is like in a normal woods or in a field. TxTC Staff (14:03) Mm-hmm. Liv Haselbach (14:13) where there's the nooks and crannies and there's water there that can slowly infiltrate into the ground. What's important for it is recharging the groundwater system and reducing the amount of runoff. The more runoff you have, the more water pollution you have, the more erosion you have, and then obviously the more flooding and other destruction that you have. So these pervious concrete systems are well accepted in... some of the Western states. ⁓ They have been tried a lot in a lot of the Northern states, but there's issues with de-icing chemicals in some of those. So Texas is a great candidate for it. ⁓ But I think with the land area that they have in a lot of places in Texas, it hasn't come forward as much as a great technology. TxTC Staff (14:38) Mm-hmm. Mm. Liv Haselbach (15:00) In all technologies that the civil engineering world does in the public, have to have it tried and true. ⁓ And just because it works in San Mateo, California, they'll say, well, you have different soils there. Is it going to work in those soils? You have different type of rainstorms there. Is it going to work in those types? And we have to slowly test-bed these things as we go along. So what's been really nice is the fact that in between some TxTC Staff (15:08) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Liv Haselbach (15:29) senior design projects here and an EPA grant and then the censoring that we extended with the DOE grant. We are trying to prove the efficacy of these systems long term. People say, well, yeah, it works now, but is it going to work in the future? Look, all the dirt and the silt is going to clog it up or those kinds of things. So it's been pretty cool how we're doing it. The other thing is in normal land development, like in a residential, TxTC Staff (15:51) huh. Liv Haselbach (15:58) You have new driveway, you have some walks, but you also have some landscape spaces. And so the connection with the rain garden that we have on campus too, and going forward with ideas for that, you start painting a full picture. And I know that one of the professors at A ⁓ looked at an area that has constant nuisance flooding. in the Port Arthur area of what if we put these kinds of things in where we have more the rain gardens, the swales and all, how could it help if it starts to be something that individuals and then communities and the various departments of public works all work together to do. And a little bit here and a little bit there adds up to a lot. So I think one of the other amazing things here, TxTC Staff (16:25) Mm-hmm. Yeah. So can you talk a little bit how you connected to some of the industry partners and how they were embedded with the work or how it moved toward increasing better technologies and local practice? Liv Haselbach (17:09) Yeah, so I've been fortunate because of the work I've been doing on flooding in the area that the industries in general, they have something called the Plant Managers Forum that meets monthly. And for the last few years, me and also a gentleman that's on the Natures River flood planning group with me, we've been inviting just to update on what kind of research going on, how they could help with it. And so with that, ⁓ Most of the industries know that this project and several other projects were around so they could be familiar and with it in their environmental subcommittee, they then had one of the gentlemen that works for ExxonMobil be on the task force for the UIFL. I've had a big connection with ExxonMobil for many years now since we started the flood sensors, one of the flood sensors. is on the river right at their facility and maintained by them for us for their information. Motiva also there's a flood sensor outside of their facility that helps them understand when employees can get back and forth in cases of storms and hurricanes and things like that. So these connections have gone on over the years and because of the various connections and how TxTC Staff (18:18) Mm-hmm. Liv Haselbach (18:26) Manobold, the industry has been wanting to know what is being studied and hoping that it will benefit them as much too. You know, I've also had a connection with BASF ⁓ Agricultural. I'm actually on their advisory council. And when you ask them if they'll present in a class, they are very happy to do it. It just so happens that with ExxonMobil, I was interested in flares. That's a big issue around here. Concern of flares. TxTC Staff (18:29) Mm-hmm. Liv Haselbach (18:54) what's coming out of them and whatnot. And instead they had one of the manufacturers from the country come on down to give a lecture and about a dozen ExxonMobil employees attended the class that day also. So yeah, it was really nice. So we're taking advantage of sharing technologies back and forth ⁓ or information on upcoming technologies or things like that. And for me, it's been really fun because I learned a lot. TxTC Staff (18:56) Mm-hmm. Wow. Mm. Yeah, I find it pretty unique, the relationship with industry that we've had on the project and that you guys have in Lamar. seems to be really strong. Liv Haselbach (19:29) Well, the issues are very applied and it's a very connected community. There's an existing association here called the Sabine Nature's Chiefs Association, and it is the oldest mutual aid society in the United States. So obviously when industry started and with all the things that could happen, it's over 75 years old. 75 years ago, they didn't have a lot of the laws or the safety information or knowledge on environmental things and all. So they started it and it's this conglomerate of the safety people from the industries and the police and the fire and the EMS and the counties and the health directors and all that monthly get together and their important thing is they actually share their equipment. So they have a list of equipment in case of emergencies and all these other things. And they keep track of how much they help each other for free. So the philosophy is we have a lot of great things, but we have a lot of issues. We just got to help each other. And I think that's one of the things that has attracted me so much to the kind of research I have been able to participate in at Lamar. TxTC Staff (20:31) Yeah. Yeah. Liv Haselbach (20:47) is because of that, connection and the willingness to work with everyone. This project had so many different universities, we weren't competing against each other, we were helping each other. TxTC Staff (20:54) Yeah. Yeah. Why do you think the collaboration works so well there in Southeast Texas? You just mentioned this rich togetherness, I guess. Why do you think it works? Liv Haselbach (21:11) I think one of the reasons is because most of the people are just normal average US people that live here. They don't have like the big skyscraper, fancy chairman of the board, kind of. It's actually working people and all. And that makes up a lot of the population in the US. TxTC Staff (21:17) Yeah. Liv Haselbach (21:32) the communities that work together, they also play together and know each other. And a lot of the people, even if you're working for industry, your kids are going to the schools nearby and stuff like that too. And so the industry has been important for jobs. It also has the concerns, but it's been important for that. The ⁓ environment's been important. You know, the natural environment's been important for everyone. And then Lamar, TxTC Staff (21:37) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Liv Haselbach (21:57) unlike some of the larger universities in the country, most of its population is more regional, the people attending with it, so they also have this big sense of community of what's here. TxTC Staff (22:05) Hmm. Yeah, and with that, you've talked about tons of industry connections, classroom connections, and activity areas. Surely there are some challenges that go with that. So looking back over the past few years, would you say some of the challenges in trying to help manage a project this large with this many people connecting? Liv Haselbach (22:34) everyone's too busy. you know, that's the thing. It's really, there's so many things going on. And there's so many different changes, whether it's changes in our policies or, or the technologies that are changing and stuff like that. So it's hard to keep together what's been fortunate for us that came out of something unfortunate is the fact that now TxTC Staff (22:36) Yeah. Hmm. Liv Haselbach (23:00) People are used to using these online video type chatting rooms and they're very well developed. They weren't that well developed when we started the flood coordination study in 2019. It was after COVID that they were. And that has really facilitated because otherwise it would have been almost impossible for people to meet on a regular basis, which is what it is needed for these projects to go along. Because of the distance traveled and the cost of traveling and the time TxTC Staff (23:04) Mm-hmm. Hmm. Liv Haselbach (23:28) and it takes to traveling back and forth. I think that has helped tremendously the couple of times a year when we all get together, you know, that's a logistic challenge to bring the people together. But fortunately, the grant was generous in the funding for some of that and that helped also. TxTC Staff (23:41) Yeah. Well, why do you think this work is important? Liv Haselbach (23:53) ⁓ well. it's as I said, we welcome anyone that wants to help Southeast Texas because everything that you do has its good sides and also has repercussions. know, ⁓ good transportation and highways has issues with the pollution from the cars. Having industry. TxTC Staff (24:03) Mm. Liv Haselbach (24:17) with the energy industry that we have here has issues with either air, water, or other pollution or noise issues. Even in our natural environment, there's issues to deal with. Like for instance, in the marshes, have prescribed burns. That's part of the environmental sequence of events for the marshes, but you have to do them so that they don't affect the people at the same time ⁓ as we go forward. TxTC Staff (24:25) Hmm. Mm-hmm. Liv Haselbach (24:44) So it's a vital area of the country on many aspects, whether it's the natural environment or whether it's industry, particularly with the energy industry. And with that, it's important to work with it. I think one of the other really cool things is that how we've come to work together, all of us, whether it's the agencies, the universities, the communities, the industry. is setting an example for other places in the country. TxTC Staff (25:09) And to kind of add on that, if there's someone listening here who's from Southeast Texas What would you want your Southeast Texas neighbors to know about this specific project? Liv Haselbach (25:22) I think that it is going to have things that last for a while coming from it, which is what is really nice. Sometimes people come and help and then they leave, but a lot of the things here are going long-term. I know the Texas Target communities had a presence here ahead of time and is continuing on in the future. And the fact that this project came in and helped continue with the flood sensors and grow it, helped leverage the fact that there's now a GLO grant to add rain gauges to a lot of the sensors around here to help with the project. And you might not know, but Lamar University just got a ⁓ GULF research program education grant to help take some of the things to the community, to the high schools. TxTC Staff (26:09) Amazing. Liv Haselbach (26:13) ⁓ It's mainly for teacher training and bringing test kits and all for low impact development for rain gardens. So that science to the younger generation around here. So things are continuing on and helping with it. The one thing I didn't talk about was my co-design work, which is more low impact development. And with that, one of my specialties is pervious concrete, a permeable pavement system to, again, mimic. TxTC Staff (26:13) wow. Mm-hmm. Liv Haselbach (26:39) natural hydrological processes and we have a thing on campus connected to a rain garden which is part of an EPA grant that got leveraged for this but that we've been using for high school demonstrations and it has been one of the things that has helped go forward now with the larger education grants so that it isn't just major agency projects to help with the flooding or help with the air pollution but it goes from regional scale to community scale. And down to site scale, individuals can themselves help with some of these problems. And I think the public is very willing to find out what they can do. TxTC Staff (27:16) That's amazing. What would you want another community in the United States to know about this project? Liv Haselbach (27:24) Well, I basically think is that when you try and help each other, things grow. So it isn't, and just step out there and try and help each other. And as you do, it may not be what, what results of it may not be what you first anticipated, but what results from it is amazing. There are things that. that go forward. When we started the flood coordination study, we thought we were going to do mainly modeling and it ended up being more focused on communication as we go forward. TxTC Staff (27:56) Yeah, and I agree. I saw that firsthand in Southeast Texas. I I remember being in some of our task force meetings and asking the task force members to describe their community, describe what they love. And they all were like, we're together, we're neighbors in times of crisis. Like neighbors help neighbors from, and this is from like Exxon Mobil leaders to like teachers to police officers to nonprofit leaders. They're all like, yeah, we're family. Like we. even though our industries might look like they compete against each other and they're at each other's throats, it's really not the case. And in southeast Texas, at least. There's also that mentality, they also said that feeling like they have to band together because they also feel a little forgotten ⁓ in the United States. So I don't know if you wanna elaborate on that. Liv Haselbach (28:39) yeah. So if I tell people that I'm at Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas, they always go, where's that? I go, oh, about 100 miles east of. TxTC Staff (28:49) What? Liv Haselbach (28:53) of Houston, close to Louisiana border. And they've all heard about major shipping places and waterways. But if I say the Sabine River, the Natures River, nobody knows what I'm talking about. And yet it's there. The Sabine Natures Waterway is like the fourth busiest waterway in the country as far as tonnage and things like that. So, yeah, it has been a little bit TxTC Staff (29:07) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Liv Haselbach (29:20) forgotten in the fact that it doesn't make people don't know too much about what's there. But that's okay. You don't always have to make the main news or be where everyone knows. TxTC Staff (29:27) Yeah. Right. Yeah, I mean, similarly after Hurricane Harvey, know, Houston got all that attention as, you know, they had extreme rainfall, but so did Beaumont, Port Arthur in southeast Texas. And they were kind of left out of that news reel during that time and so many other different times. you know. Liv Haselbach (29:46) Yeah. Yeah, and... I guess one thing that very much annoys me is that tropical storm Imelda, which we had in 2019, if you take a 24 hour period from like 10 a.m. to 10 a.m., it was the most rain in 24 hours recorded in the U.S., all right? Yeah, for that, not from midnight to midnight, but for that, was an amazing amount of rain. And this year, they went and named another storm, Tropical Storm Imelda. TxTC Staff (30:11) wow, I didn't know that, yeah. Wow. Liv Haselbach (30:25) Yeah, I know. Yeah, anyway. So again, it was forgotten by other places, but not by here. And then there's technologies that are coming from it that help a lot of other things. For instance, in Harvey, with the interstate and all, they have those concrete barriers that are in between. And it just so happened in a few stretches, they almost TxTC Staff (30:25) That's confusing. Yeah. There's too many eye storms, I guess. Yeah. ⁓ Right, exactly. Mm-hmm. Liv Haselbach (30:53) act as a wall or a dam to back up water. And with it, designs went to A ⁓ University in Texas to their big transportation institute there to make ones that had openings in them to allow flood waters to go through. And now that technology has been tested and is available in other places. TxTC Staff (30:56) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I noticed that when I'm driving down I-10. When I'm driving in those little slits, was like, hey, this is probably for flooding. Liv Haselbach (31:20) And they couldn't just put holes in it. It had to be crash tested to make sure that for certain speeds and all that, you know, they have those cars that have the mannequins in it and all, and it had to be verified that it was just as safe as other ones. TxTC Staff (31:24) ⁓ sure. Yeah. Well, what do you hope these collaborations will look like once the project ends? Liv Haselbach (31:41) Well, as I said, they're already connecting to a lot of other things. So the collaboration that we're having here with the educational thing from the Gulf Research Program one, the GLO ⁓ Coastal Management Program one to extend sensors for it. I'm still connected with researchers at the University of Texas who helped start all this with me. TxTC Staff (31:43) Yeah, right. Liv Haselbach (32:06) for future projects outside of this region as it goes. So the region is benefiting from it, but I also think that the connections will continue outside and with other universities. And frankly, it's nice to see universities that are just helping each other along and not competing straight against each other in this world. TxTC Staff (32:23) Mm-hmm. Yes. Yeah, this has been a really amazing project just from that standpoint because we're Cedric and I are used to working with communities and community partners, but not always so collaboratively with other universities. So that's been refreshing as well. Liv Haselbach (32:43) Well, I think that my main sense of what I think is part of this and how it goes forward is that connections and communications are the key, period. Yeah. TxTC Staff (32:53) Right, I think so. Great. Thanks, Leif. Liv Haselbach (32:57) I'm just very happy everyone's trying to help in southeast Texas and I hope they continue to do so.