The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Louisiana’s Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority (CPRA) are working hard on the West Shore Lake Pontchartrain Hurricane and Storm Risk Reduction Project (WSLP).
This 18.5-mile flood protection system will extend from the Bonnet Carré Spillway to the Mississippi River Levee in Garyville, providing a 100-year level of storm surge risk reduction for over 60,000 residents in St. Charles, St. John, and St. James parishes.
The project goes hand-in-hand with CPRA’s River Reintroduction into Maurepas Swamp, a freshwater diversion which will mitigate the unavoidable impacts of the WSLP by channeling nutrient-rich freshwater from the Mississippi River back into the Maurepas Swamp.
According to CPRA, this will help renourish one of Louisiana’s critical wetland ecosystems.