Comprehensive Habitat Management Plan
for the Pontchartrain Basin

As its first action, LPBF 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, LPBF developed a Comprehensive Management Plan (CMP) 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 LPBF programs and projects. Successful in the SAVE OUR LAKE campaign by 2002, LPBF created a Comprehensive Habitat Management Plan (CHMP) that provides goals, strategies and methods designed for Basin sustainability.

The CHMP was developed by a science and engineering committee and reviewed by a second panel of coastal experts.

The Pontchartrain Basin includes nearly all of Louisiana east of the Mississippi River. The basin was divided in four sub-basins to analyze baseline conditions, impairments and restoration needs of each.

Recommendations include at least

• Expansion of longleaf pine savannah in the Florida parishes (Upland Sub-basin)
• Restoration and protection of north shore riverine habitats (Upland Sub-basin)
• River reintroductions to sustain and re-build cypress swamps around Lake Maurepas (Upper Sub-basin)
• Restoration of the fringing marsh along the south shore of Lake Pontchartrain (Middle Sub-basin)
• Hydrologic restoration of St. Bernard and Plaquemines Parish's estuaries through constriction of the MRGO channel and river reintroductions (Lower Sub-basin)

Adobe pdf version:
Comprehensive Habitat Management Plan