It's under water much of the winter and spring, but that's exactly what the 540-acre C. Bickham Dickson Park is supposed to be. According to Gary Hanson, assistant professor of environmental science and director of the LSUS Red River Watershed Management Institute, the area is a "wetlands, and it's supposed to flood."

A vital partnership resulting in a management agreement between LSUS and the city of Shreveport has established the Red River Education and Research Park (RRERP) as part of the Watershed Management Institute.

"There are other universities involved in watershed research," Hanson said, "not the least of which are LSU-Baton Rouge and Ohio State University. We're in close communication with them and others, but the natural wetlands of Bickham Dickson Park give us something none of the others has - size."

Hanson said LSU-BR plans to create a 250-acre wetlands park, and Ohio State has managed to build a 35-acre research plot.

The research potential for the LSUS Institute has drawn national academic attention. Moreover, Hanson has had detailed discussions and meetings with the U.S. Geological Survey and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

In the past year, the Institute has received more than $1 million in grants.

"The scientific community is sitting up and taking notice of what's going on with this project," Hanson said.

Among the many reasons for the widespread recognition is the intense interest being shown by Halliburton Energy Services and a growing number of corporate and governmental partnerships.
In early February, through a consortium led by MHC X-Ploration, of Tyler, Texas, the first test well - or "borehole" - in the RRERP was drilled.

The Halliburton and MHC X-Ploration-led consortium of companies donated their drilling and monitoring services and equipment use.

Subsequent wireline logging in the well used expensive Halliburton electronic equipment. Officials involved in the project said they believe it was the first time the process was used anywhere in the world. In wireline logging, high-powered monitoring equipment is lowered in to the test well to make the readings.

Dan Buller, Halliburton's senior account representative - logging and perforating, said the RRERP grounds will "eventually be laced with a series of water monitoring test wells and surface instrumentation to document changes inside a unique urban wetlands area adjacent to the Red River. This park, and its local support, are quickly becoming the prototype for future federal funding in support of EPA and Army Corps of Engineers efforts to scientifically model the dynamic processes that occur due to watershed management activities."

Buller said Halliburton Energy Services crews from Kilgore, Bossier City and Laurel, Miss., completed the open-hole logging and cementing operations on the test well, drilled to 300 feet and cased to 256 feet.

"This was probably the most analyzed and evaluated water well in the history of North Louisiana," Buller said. At least eight high-technology logging tools were used in the well to collect all manner of data. Halliburton also brought in a mobile unit equipped to analyze the initial results and valued at about $250,000.

One of the logging tools - a Magnetic Resonance Imaging Log - uses the same technology as MRIs used by hospitals. The obvious difference was that the images were made from the inside out, rather than from the outside in.

The data collected over several days by the red-clad Halliburton crews were transmitted via satellite to company research facilities in Houston for detailed analysis.

Buller said the tests will be "leaned on for developing new methods of determining aquifer quality, deliverability and stratigraphic orientation for reservoir modeling."

After the logging operations were completed, cement crews helped set a permanent six-inch PVC liner that will allow both water sampling and future access as a locally available wireline test well.