A Few Examples:
- Complex river boundaries and former channels, oxbows and raft lakes, accretion and avulsion. Numerous projects on Red River.
- Lead hydrologic civil engineering expert for FEMA on $65 million lawsuit regarding flooding from Hurricane Gustav. Testified in Washington, DC.
- Coastal erosion and subsidence on lakes as related to hurricanes, subsidence, erosion of alleged natural coastal revetments such as clam shells deposted on the shore over thousands of years by native American Indians.
- Geomorphologic and hydrologic reconstruction of the navigability of raft lakes and their effect upon water levels in rivers an lakes back to Louisiana statehood in 1812. Has huge impact upon state ownership of lakebeds and related minerals.
- Determination of the hydrologic boundaries of complex natural lakes using engineering and applied sciences. Often large oil or gas royalties are associated with boundaries of natural lakes. This issue was the subject of Willis' PhD dissertation. Currently lead expert for State of Louisiana in litigation Catahoula Lake, on the largest fresh-water natural lake in Louisiana, and one of the largest in the US.
- Earth dam failures and the causes of failures such as seepage, structural damage, erosion, subsidence, and the highly unusual condition association with rare dispersive clays.
- Application of engineering hydraulic mathematical dynamic simulation of a 10,000,000-gallon oil tank that shifted and ruptured during a 13-foot storm surge and contaminated thousands of acres with oil during Hurricane Katrina.
- Determination of the historic positions of the mouth of Bayou Daro and the mouth of Little River, Louisiana in 1869 as part of our role as the engineer and land surveyor of record in the most famous and technically complex boundary political boundary dispute in the history of Louisiana. Gained national recognition.
- Hydraulics, hydrology and civil engineering leading expert on class-action litigation on one of the largest hazardous waste injection wells in Louisiana at Bayou Sorrel, LA
- Complex and confusing hydrologic boundary and limits of the jurisdictional physical limits of Lake Jordan, North Carolina.
- Close-range photogrammetric reconstruction of historical events using state-of-the-art techniques to extract geometric data from any photograph, old or new.
- Geotechnical analysis of ULL Student Union Foundation and design of non-standard solution for unworkable soild conditions beneath foundation.
- Analysis of explosion shockwaves or pile driving to determine or estimate damage to structures.
- Hydrologic and other contamination sources in the national class-action lawsuit on the genetically modified rice case, Louisiana and Puerto Rico.
- Tracking of moisture related to contamination in the Peter Pan Peanut Butter and Peanut Butter Corporation of America contamination cases.
- Leading hydrologist for a law firm in the Charleston, WV water supply contamination case. Water supply of 300,000 people was contaminated.
- Class action lawsuit by Atchafalaya Basin against pipeline companies that constructed pipelines perpendicular to the natural flow of the 300,000-acre basin and blocked natural linear and braided flow, thus damaging the crawfish ecosystem.
- Developed solution to reduce net water loss on a 6,000-acre cooling lake for a coal-fired electrical power plant. Used reverse flow technique to replenish water lost to evaporation at a rate of 38,000 gallons per minute.
- Turbidity reduction study to counteract the turbidity of a large power plant cooling lake caused by wave sediment transport exacerbated by introduction of grass carp to remove excess grass.
- Currently studying the effect of Giant and Common Salvinia and the long-term effect of oxygen depletion in lakes, and the effect of potential severe drainageway obstruction by Salvina. Salvinia is an invasive water plant imported from South America and is one of the fastest-growing plants in the world. One pound of Salvinia can generate 1 billion pounds in 30 days. Salvinia is one of the most severe ecological threats to waterways in the southern US.
