Albany to fund tech center

POTSDAM — Recent passage of legislation sponsored by Assemblywoman Addie J. Russell, D-Theresa, is allowing Clarkson University to create a center for advanced environmental technology on its downtown campus.

The bill, A 6726-A, was passed in the state Assembly and Senate earlier this month and will allow funding from the state Dormitory Authority to be allocated to Clarkson. The funding was granted previously to the Dutchess County-based Beacon Institute for Rivers and Estuaries, which now will partner with Clarkson to renovate the college's Old Main building and conduct the River and Estuary Observatory Network initiative.

"We're very appreciative of the support from Assemblywoman Addie J. Russell and also Senator Joseph Griffo," R-Rome, Clarkson President Anthony G. Collins said. "It will bring more research activity to Clarkson and Potsdam, and it will renew our most historic building."

The River and Estuary Observatory Network, a partnership among Clarkson, the Beacon Institute and IBM, will create the first real-time monitoring system for rivers and estuaries.

Clarkson's role in the new facility will be to create, test and update the technology behind the monitoring systems, which ultimately will track physical, chemical and biological changes in the entire 315 miles of the Hudson River.

Mr. Collins likened the data gathered by the system's sensors to a weather report for the river, saying that the minute-to-minute reports eventually will help shape public policy about waterways. The Clarkson research efforts will draw from the college's environmental science and engineering department as well as the electrical engineering department.

"This would be a way of understanding not what's occurring in the atmosphere, but what's occurring in our rivers on a moment-by-moment basis," Mr. Collins said. "Many of us believe that the challenge is not that we live in an oil economy, but that we live in a water economy. Being able to understand on a real-time basis what's occurring with water quality allows us to better utilize that limited resource."

Because the project is an extensive and ongoing endeavor, the Clarkson research facility will be devoted almost exclusively to river and estuary monitoring. Mr. Collins said he anticipates that renovating and equipping the building, which has been vacant for 15 years, will create 20 to 30 short-term construction positions.

The details of Clarkson's partnership with Beacon, including the amount of funding to be received by the college, have yet to be finalized, but Ms. Russell said the project will help revitalize downtown.

"This is an exciting project for Clarkson University, Potsdam and the surrounding communities as a whole," she said in a written statement. "The science and technology fields are the job creators of the future. In order to compete for these jobs, we need to have world-class facilities right here in the north country. ... I am pleased that we will see more redevelopment of Clarkson's campus as a result of this project."