The School of the Coast and Environment received a donation from Shell Oil Corporation through the Louisiana State University Foundation to establish the Coastal Environmental Modeling Laboratory (CEML) and equip it with a Beowulf-type computer cluster. CEML, in collaboration with the LSU Center for Computational Technology (CCT), seeks to become an influential center for environmental forecasting with a special focus on multidisciplinary restoration strategies that lead to sustainability in Louisiana's coastal regions and the Gulf of Mexico. These capabilities are vital to the state, to coastal restoration planning, and to support hurricane forecasting. This computer cluster will supplement the capabilities of the SuperMike and SuperHelix clusters already in general use as LSU, but will be a special purpose research cluster, and will also take advantage of relatively inexpensive 64-bit chip technology. The computer cluster has been designed specifically to meet the needs of environmental modeling, particularly models that incorporate high-resolution finite-element and finite-difference hydrodynamic and meterological models, and coupled models to forecast water quality and ecological interations.