Splash image

Pontchartrain Conservancy

Pontchartrain Conservancy’s mission is to drive environmental sustainability and stewardship through scientific research, education, and advocacy. The Pontchartrain Conservancy is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization consisting of a 14-member board of directors representing Basin parishes and regulatory agencies.

The Lake Pontchartrain Basin is a 10,000 square mile watershed encompassing 16 Louisiana parishes. The land use of the region is both rural and urban and is the most densely populated region in Louisiana, including metro New Orleans and the state capital, Baton Rouge. It is one of the largest estuarine systems in the Gulf of Mexico containing over 22 essential habitats. The Basin’s topography ranges from rolling woodlands in the north to coastal marshes in the south, with the 630 square mile Lake Pontchartrain as its centerpiece.

Since its founding in 1989, Pontchartrain Conservancy has been charged with improving water quality issues throughout the basin, where many beaches, rivers, and bayous were closed to swimming due to contamination with fecal coliform bacteria. To document the Lake’s water quality and encourage people to return to the lake, Pontchartrain Conservancy started the “Basin-wide Water Quality Monitoring Program” in 2001. In this program we perform weekly water quality monitoring at ten recreational sites around Lake Pontchartrain.

Pontchartrain Conservancy has helped improve water quality in the Basin by implementing fecal source tracking programs, and providing assistance to home and commercial wastewater treatment facilities to reduce non-point source pollution. To date, this program has collected more than 9,000 water quality samples across 120 sites and worked with more than 1,000 commercial and 3,000 home WWTPs. This work has been pivotal in removing Lake Pontchartrain, The Bogue Falaya River, Tchefuncte River, and Tangipahoa Rivers from LDEQ’s 303(d)/305(b) impairments for fecal coliform.

Email: waterquality@scienceforourcoast.org
Website: scienceforourcoast.org
Facebook: www.facebook.com/PontchartrainConservancy/
Twitter: @ourbasin
Instagram: @pontchartrainconservancy
youtube: youtube.com/LPBF

Have you noticed pollution at your local beach? Let us know.