Save Our Lake, Save Our Coast

Save Our Lake, Save Our Coast

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As its first action, PC began the SAVE OUR LAKE campaign working to restore Lake Pontchartrain for the public to use as a healthy economic and recreational resource. In 1995, PC developed a Comprehensive Management Plan jointly with the U.S Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and numerous other federal, state, and local agencies, elected officials, area universities, sporting and recreational organizations, citizens groups, commercial fishing organizations, and representatives from the agricultural community and the business community. Its contributors exhaustively cataloged the threats to the Basin by sewage, agricultural and urban runoff, saltwater intrusion, and wetlands loss. It has served as the roadmap for PC programs and projects. Successful in this campaign by 2002, PC created a Comprehensive Habitat Management Plan (CHMP). The CHMP provides goals, strategies and methods designed for Basin sustainability.

In June 2005 to address CHMP goals, PC created a formal coastal sustainability program. Shortly before Hurricane Katrina, PC devised the Multiple Lines of Defense Strategy (MLODS). From this strategy the Pontchartrain Coastal Lines of Defense Program (PCLOD) was created. This program is a set of 10 projects and guidelines offered by PC to Federal and State agencies as the best way to provide coastal restoration and hurricane protection in the Basin. Additionally, out of MLODS came PC’s SAVE OUR COAST campaign as part of the commitment to educate the citizenry on the importance of restoring our coastal wetlands, protecting wetland habitats, and providing flood protection across all of South Louisiana.

PC’s latest efforts reach across the entire Louisiana coast with a broader plan called the Louisiana Coastal Lines of Defense. The plan uses the MLODS to set habitat goals and identify manmade and natural defenses that the State and Federal agencies can use to help provide coastal sustainability and storm protection for Louisiana.