Tech’s Water Center Celebrates 40 Years

Tennessee Tech’s Water Center will celebrate its 40th anniversary Friday by highlighting its rich history and upcoming plans.

The center studies functions of water and the ecology of water. Director Justin Murdock said the event will celebrate the various accomplishments the center has seen over the past four decades.

“We’re offering some presentations about our current work both from our faculty and from the students that are associated with the Water Center,” Murdock said. “So we wanted just to have an event where people can come and listen for a while, but also give them the opportunity to talk and mingle, look at research posters, have a little food.”

Murdock said they plan to bring together past staff, current researchers, personnel from partner agencies, and the public. Murdock said the center does a wide variety of water-based research and they want to share their resources with others.

“We provide a lot of information to state agencies, federal agencies in terms of water quality, biodiversity and conservation of organisms,” Murdock said. “Things like hydrologic modeling and investigation of ways that we can reduce flooding or better predict, you know, flooding and droughts in the future.”

Murdock said they will also be sharing information about the services they provide for the local population like a state-certified water quality testing lab.

“Anybody that’s interested in getting water tested either at their home or at their business, they can bring it to our laboratory,” Murdock said. “We service, you know, typically we service homeowners with housing transactions.”

Murdock said the event was put together by a committee of members within the water center.

“One of the things that came up was just to basically find a way that we can connect with the people that have worked here in the past, help us to gain some history of what has gone on in the past during the past forty years,” Murdock said.

Murdock said the event is open to the public but anyone interested needs to RSVP. They can do so through the Water Center’s website or call (931) 372-3609.