St. Tammany Parish, along with several state and federal agencies, is currently in the process of restoring vital marshland to the coastline in the Big Branch National Wildlife Refuge in Lacombe.  This project was proposed by St. Tammany Parish and the US Fish and Wildlife Service several years ago as a way to combat coastal erosion and preserve the wetlands, which provide an extremely important buffer in the case of hurricanes or other storms.  The project is funded by a joint federal and state coastal restoration program called the Coastal Wetlands Planning, Protection and Restoration Act.

   The project involves dredging material from the bottom of Lake Pontchartrain and pumping it to areas where erosion has taken place.  The sediment laden material works to provide a base for new plant life to grow.  The process takes time and involves several steps, but the end result is the reclamation of marshland crucial to the Louisiana coastline.  St. Tammany Parish has miles of coastline affected by the storms we have experienced over the past few years.

   While St. Tammany continues to grow and maintain a solid economic base, we cannot ignore the environmental needs our parish faces.  All our economic hard work would be pointless if we did not maintain good stewardship of the unique environment which is found in many areas of St. Tammany Parish.  We must continue to support projects such as this, and even expand the number of restoration projects taking place in our area.  Conservation of our wetlands as part of our overall environmental awareness is important to balancing our long term growth in St. Tammany.

Healthy wetlands	Water channel through healthy wetlands
Containment berm to hold in nutrients; area on right of berm is being restored	Nutrient laden material from Lake Pontchartrain
; Spreading out nutrient material in restoration area