POTSDAM -- A center for advanced environmental technology focusing on river monitoring could be established at Clarkson University’s historic Old Main Building in downtown Potsdam.

A bill sponsored by Assemblywoman Addie Russell (D-Theresa) has passed in the Assembly that would allow the Beacon Institute for Rivers and Estuaries to access funding through the state Dormitory Authority to renovate Clarkson’s 116-year-old Old Main for an advanced research facility.

Old Main, like much of Clarkson’s downtown campus, has sat idle since the university moved most of its operations to the hill more than a decade ago.

In partnership with Clarkson and Beacon, the River and Estuary Observatory Network (REON), the first technology-based monitoring and forecasting network of its kind, will provide minute-to-minute monitoring of data from the Hudson and St. Lawrence Rivers. Researchers say such monitoring systems allow scientists to better understand and predict how large river and estuary ecosystems work. That knowledge, in turn, will translate into better public policy and management of the Hudson and St. Lawrence Rivers, and rivers and estuaries worldwide.

“The new research center will not only help spur job growth in the science and technology fields but it will also help breathe new life into downtown Potsdam,” said Russell.

“These rivers will serve as test-beds for the advancement of a technology that can be commercialized to meet a global demand for technology that provides early warning and identification of isolated threats to water quality before they become larger problems requiring costly multi-year remedial actions,” Clarkson University President Tony Collins said. “I am very appreciative of Assemblywoman Addie Russell’s work in the Assembly and Senator Joe Griffo’s in the Senate.”

Russell said that in order to compete successfully for new science and technology jobs, “we need to have world-class facilities right here in the North Country.”