“Exoforms” are now being produced in Amelia. They are a coastal resilience solution made from sand and concrete, produced by a climate technology company in partnership with an energy service provider at their “Resilience center of Excellence.”
“Our main use of these is protecting coastal shorelines,” Natrx General Manager Tyler Ortego said. “We’re able to make coastal armoring that both stops erosion of wetlands. Also provides habitats for oysters and fish and anything else that might use it.”
Ortego said through their technology they are able to take a concept, design the shape, proof it and go into production within 24 hours.
“So behind me you could see our patented dry forming process, so this is a state-of-the-art method of forming concrete modules for coastal resilience applications,” Ortego said.
Ortego, a St. Landry Parish native said his idea started from a school project on how to use oysters to prevent coastal erosion.
“It has been many years since then but we’re finally catching some steam,” Ortego said. “This is my home. Louisiana is eroding at a rate that no place else is. So, we came up with this solution to be a solution for Louisiana.”
Ortego said they hope to expand to the whole gulf and the whole world.
“We are right here on the water this is a world class facility we’re able to go straight from our production process, onto a barge never touch a truck,” Ortego said. “So it’s very efficient, we have lots of room for growth and we’ll be able to expand and really reach anywhere in the world from this facility.”
Danos Craft foreman Duncan Prentice prints the pieces which he’s seen range from 60 pounds to a ton.
“The miles and miles of natural shoreline armour that we’re gonna be creating will be providing homes to tens of millions of oysters, corals and fish,” Prentice said.
Ortego said the company's next project is getting mobile dry former units into Hawaii and eventually on the eastern coast.
