What’s billed as the first university-related comprehensive river research lab in the world will be built in eastern Iowa. University of Iowa mechanical engineering professor V-C Patel explains the goal of the planned Mississippi Riverside Environmental Research Station.The project is being launched with a one-point-two million dollar gift from the Roy Carver Charitable Trust. Professor Patel says the research station will be devoted to studying the impact on the river of everything from flooding to droughts to farming.Patel is director of the Iowa Institute of Hydraulic Research at the U-of-I College of Engineering. He says the University would like to build the research facility in the Muscatine area, as that’s only an hour’s drive from the Iowa City campus.Construction can begin on the lab once the land is purchased. Patel hopes it’ll be ready to use by summer of 2001.
Iowa's Radio News Network
