Lacombe Heritage Center

Lacombe Heritage Center Altho we are not traditionally structured as a nonprofit, but rather as a business, we do not insist upon dues but upon doers.

The Lacombe Heritage Center is a 501(C)3 nonprofit organization that preserves and promotes the environmental, historical and cultural heritage of Lacombe, Louisiana and surrounding areas. Anyone with a passion for accomplishment is welcome.

09/14/2024
08/12/2024

ENVIRONMENTAL DIVISIONS of the LACOMBE HERITAGE CENTER: S.T.E.P.>ST. TAMMANY ENVIRONMENTAL PROGRAM &
L.E.A.P>LACOMBE ENVIRONMENTAL ACTION PROJECT through the NATURE OF LEARNING PROJECT presents the below to make our citizens aware of our environmental heritage and our responsibility.
1 Year Ago
See your memories
Warren WhiteRam
August 12, 2023 · Shared with Public
On this day
6 years ago
Warren WhiteRam
Bayou Lacombe is the Gateway to the 18,000 acre Big Branch Marsh National Wildlife Refuge, an ecological treasure of subtropical rain forests and wetlands that extends like an emerald necklace along the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain; a complex of swamps, marshes, lagoons, bays and bayous, pine savanna forest, and live oak ridges, with varied avian, mammalian, reptilian, and marine wildlife, some of which had been on the endangered species list, but are now making a comeback: Brown Pelican, Manatee, Gulf Sturgeon, Egret, Bald Eagle, Alligator.
For years, the pristine marsh along Lake Rd. had been used as a dumping ground for all sorts of illegal trash, including construction debris, appliances, furniture, hot water heaters, toilets, old tires and cars, even an old school bus, office equipment, plus all manner of household garbage, and a constant supply of marine trash and recreational litter; all brought in and discarded or dumped by thoughtless, trashy people. Despite the nay-sayers, who maintained that no one could clean it up and change the habits of the dumpers, the two environmental divisions of the Lacombe Heritage Center did it. Our initial work is being continued through the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, headquartered in Lacombe, and an occasional litter pickup by Keep Lacombe Beautiful.
Organized in 1993, STEP, St. Tammany Environmental Patrol became the educational and recruitment arm of the Lacombe Heritage Center, which involved Junior and Senior High school students in our Junior Ranger Corps, and LEAP, Lacombe Environmental Action Project, which became the implementation tool of our Junior Ranger Corps. In 2004, our Adopt-A-Spot: Learn, Work, Play initiative won a Civic Award from the Gulf of Mexico Program in a five state competition.
Through these two divisions, cooperating with Jerry and Clara Crawford of Big Branch and Cliff and Connie Glockner of Lacombe in the grassroots movement to SAVE OUR LAKE, we became watchdog citizens, attending parish and state meetings; lobbying the legislative committees, politicians and the governor; and taking legal action to restrict the shell dredgers with their high paid lobbyists and lawyers from further destroying the ecology of Lake Pontchartrain. Later this same grassroots group of citizens saved Cane Bayou and the Big Branch Marsh from being dredged and filled for commercial and residential development. They also prevented wetlands from being filled to develop a golf course in Fontainebleau State Park.
Geological and topographical
For thousands of years the Earth was in the grips of the last Ice Age. Ice sheets covered the northern hemisphere as much as a mile thick as far south as present day Chicago and scoured out the Great Lakes from the bedrock. With much of the world's waters locked up in ice, the ocean levels were several hundred feet lower than present, exposing "land bridges" throughout much of the world, including the Bering Sea connection between Asia and North America. Fierce Arctic winds swept across the dry plains of the American West carrying with it the fine particulate known as loess and deposited it in ripples, like sand on a beach, across much of the South.
In St. Tammany Parish bricks were made from this loess and shipped by schooner from Bayou Lacombe and Bayou Bonfouca to build most of the French Quarter.
About 20,000 years ago, the present period of global warming started to melt the ice. Melt water rushed down the center of the continent creating the Mississippi River Basin with its major tributaries: the Missouri and Ohio and its distributaries the Atchafalaya and the Pearl Rivers. Trillions of tons of earth, rock and sediment were carried along with the rushing water and deposited into the Gulf of Mexico, creating the wetlands of south Louisiana.
Although underlain by a layer of limestone created during the Mesozoic era as a vast inland sea, as the rivers changed course in response to hydrodynamics of lengthening shoreline, sediment grew into the parishes south of Lakes Maurepas and Pontchartrain: St. Bernard, Terrebonne, Lafourche, Plaquemine, St. Charles, St. James, St. John the Baptist, Jefferson, and Orleans, trapping the gulf waters behind their prominences. The fresh water from rivers turned the lakes into a brackish estuarine system of incredible fertility as an incubator and nursery for all manner of marine life. Rivers and bayous on the north shore are usually deeper than the lakes due to eautrophication and sediment.
Until the 1930s, when the federal government began constructing levees along the Mississippi, the annual flooding of the river would spread nutrient-rich sediment into the wetlands. Once this life-renewing sediment was cut off, the wetlands were deprived and began a slow demise, succumbing to natural erosion forces from the Gulf of Mexico. This was exacerbated and accelerated by the deliberate fragmentation of the coastal marshes and wetlands by oil exploration companies digging service canals to position and supply their rigs.
Louisiana's sedimentary wetlands, deposited over thousands of years, in less than 80 years have been destroyed and are dying. Gulf waters encroach upon the land endangering homes, towns, and cities. The City of New Orleans is doomed. Beneath the surface, faults threaten to give way, separating huge chunks of sedimentary wetlands and sloughing them off from the stable continental land mass into the Gulf. Every hour of every day we are losing Louisiana.
Ask why. If people are not aware, they will not care. Ask. Learn. What does it gain us? What can we do? What can you do? Is there hope? Are there practical solutions? We are working on it. You can help. Our job is to provide awareness. Help us Restore the Northshore. We need Doers and Donors
Follow us on Facebook. Like us. Share. Spread the word. Lend a hand.

Louisiana Bayous, Byways, Bikeways, & Blueways Initiative (C)What is a Byway?A byway is a set of roads that tell the sto...
10/27/2023

Louisiana Bayous, Byways, Bikeways, & Blueways Initiative (C)
What is a Byway?

A byway is a set of roads that tell the story of their area’s archaeological, cultural, historic, natural, recreational and scenic qualities in a compelling and extraordinary way. Byway routes are selected based on their characteristics and how well they represent their region. There are 184 scenic byways in the United States. 19 in Louisiana. Ours is 520 miles of backroads, several hundred miles of bike trails, and many hundreds of miles of aquatic trails.
This definition of "scenic" reaches beyond breathtaking vistas. These sets of roads are gateways to adventures where no two experiences are the same.(To read our full project report check out the Lacombe Heritage Center's page on Facebook.)

Explore the Northshore where enhanced, extraordinary experiences entice, excite, and excel! Tom Aicklen Indian A. Jones Tours


The National Scenic Byways Program

The vision of the Federal Highway Administration's National Scenic Byways Program is "To create a distinctive collection of American roads, their stories and treasured places."

The Lacombe Heritage Center’s mission stated in 1981 is to preserve, protect, promote, present, and pass along the environmental, historical, and cultural heritage of the region.

Our mission is to provide resources to the byway community in creating a unique travel experience and enhanced local quality of life through efforts to preserve, protect, interpret, and promote the intrinsic qualities of designated byways.

The National Scenic Byways (NSB) Program was established under the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991, and reauthorized in 1998 under the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century. Under the program, the U.S. Secretary of Transportation recognizes certain roads as National Scenic Byways or All-American Roads based on their archaeological, cultural, historic, natural, recreational, and scenic qualities. There are 150 such designated Byways in 46 states. The Federal Highway Administration promotes the collection as the America's Byways®.
The Lacombe Heritage Center was formed out of the Heritage Division of the Lacombe Bicentennial Commission in 1975. It became a Louisiana registered nonprofit in 1981, and a federal tax-exempt 501 (C) 3 nonprofit in 2000. The first trail, 'Along the Bayou' was established in 1976 by the Heritage Division of the Lacombe Bicentennial Commission, as part of the Bartram Wilderness Adventure Resource Restoration Trail and Blueway Initiative.

This program is founded upon the strength of the leaders for individual Byways. It is a voluntary, grassroots program. It recognizes and supports outstanding roads. It provides resources to help manage the intrinsic qualities within the broader Byway corridor to be treasured and shared. Perhaps one of the underlying principles for the program has been articulated best by the Byway leader who said, "The program is about recognition, not regulation."
Funding for Byways

The National Scenic Byways Discretionary Grants program provides funding for byway-related projects each year, as part of the Federal Highway Administrations Discretionary Grants Program. Projects to support and enhance National Scenic Byways, All-American Roads and State-designated byways are eligible. Applications are prepared online but submitted through the State's byway program.

Byways and Corridor Management Plans

A CMP is a written plan developed by the communities along a scenic byway that outlines how to protect and enhance the byway's intrinsic qualities and character that define their byway corridor.

In 2007, after submitting in 2004 a ‘Proposals, Projects, and Plans’ outline to the Louisiana Lt. Governor’s Office of Tourism, the Lacombe Heritage Center was awarded a seed grant to establish a CMP for the fourteen Florida and River Parishes of Southeastern Louisiana.

Most states, and the National Scenic Byways Program, require corridor management plans (CMP) for scenic byway designation. CMPs are community-based and flexible "living documents" that outline the goals, strategies, and responsibilities for preserving and promoting the byway. CMPs typically address issues such as: tourism development, historic and natural preservation, roadway safety, and economic development.

A CMP is designed to change with the community and respond to new proposals and developments along the byway corridor and they are often guided by the "14-point plan" recommended by the National Scenic Byways Program.

What's in a Corridor Management Plan?

Corridor management plans address a wide variety of issues. The level of detail in a CMP is dependent upon its role in the community and the byway planning process. If the CMP is intended solely for the local community, the document can be fairly short and address issues in broad terms. However, a more detailed plan will be necessary if the CMP is to form the basis of state or national scenic byways applications, or for grant and other funding applications.

After the first Rural Tourism Initiative, sponsored by the LHC and Earth Beautiful Foundation in December 2006 at the USFWS HQ in Lacombe, the Louisiana Office of Tourism initially offered us the seventeen byways in the state. When this, for various reasons, proved to be logistically beyond the range of our existing capacity, we were persuaded to accept the development of a CMP for the fourteen Florida and River Parishes in the Capital RC&D District. Since this coincided nicely with our already developing plans, we accepted.

It is important to remember that the CMP is a guide that addresses issues, but does not necessarily offer solutions for every problem. The CMP should address major goals, such as improved road access for other modes of transportation, like bicycles, but does not have to lay out a specific plan for implementing the goal.

At the very least, a CMP should identify and discuss the byway's intrinsic qualities, review the roadway's current condition and maintenance plans, explore visitor needs and expectations, and discuss how to promote the byway while protecting its outstanding features in the future.

Federal Highway Administration's 14-points

The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) lists 14 components that must be in any CMP included in a byway's application for national recognition. The CMP will help your byway group envision future changes and address issues before they become a problem.

The FHWA requirements for a CMP are:

A map identifying the corridor boundaries, location of intrinsic qualities, and land uses in the corridor. U. S. Geological Survey maps of your corridor region are ideal and inexpensive base maps for your corridor management planning group.

Back in the 1980s the LHC designed tourism friendly maps for self-guided tours of the region. These were submitted to the LA Department of CRT and to the St. Tammany Tourist and Convention Commission.

An assessment of the byway's intrinsic qualities and their context (the area surrounding them). The end product is typically a catalogue of the byway's scenic, historic, natural, archeological, cultural, and recreational qualities. A community visual assessment is an ideal way to involve a large number of local residents in evaluating the byway's resources Say Can You See: A Visual Awareness Toolkit for Communities, available from Scenic America, is a good way to start.

The LHC, through its Heritage Corridors & Themed Trails Rural Tourism Economic Development Initiative developed an input/evaluation method entitled, Grasp Our Vision—Share Your Vision to encourage grassroots participation on every level.

A strategy for maintaining and enhancing each of the byway's intrinsic qualities. Ask what you want the byway corridor to look like in 10-15 years and develop goals and strategies to help you get there.

This strategic plan will evolve from the GOV—SYV

A list of the agencies, groups, and individuals who are part of the team that will carry out the plan. Be sure to include a description of each individual's responsibilities and a schedule of when and how you will review their progress.

A strategy for how existing development along the corridor might be enhanced and how to accommodate new development while preserving the byway's intrinsic qualities. Many communities have long-term land use plans that can be adapted for this purpose.

A plan for on-going public participation. This might include forming a CMP steering committee made up of local citizens, a schedule of regular public meetings, or a byway management planning forum.

A Taskforce for Tomorrow’ s Tourism will be formed from representatives from each of the fourteen parishes that will devise, design, and implement a plan for enhancing communities and enticing tourists to the region.

A general review of the road's safety record to locate hazards and poor design, and identify possible corrections. Identify ways to balance safety with context-sensitive highway design practices that accommodate safety needs while preserving the road's character.

Partners in the Louisiana State Police and the LA DOTD, along with federal guidelines and local municipalities will supply this information.

A plan to accommodate commercial traffic while ensuring the safety of sightseers in smaller vehicles, as well as bicyclists, joggers, and pedestrians. Some CMP's incorporate plans to apply for Federal Transportation Enhancement funds to pay for the installation of special bicycle lanes along the byway or the creation of hiking trails.

Tom Aicklen, Coordinator of the LHC was Secretary of the Department of Streets in the Moon Landrieu administration in the 1970, and was Traffic Safety Coordinator in the Traffic Engineering Department. As an engineering planner, he developed the concept for transforming Jackson Square into a pedestrian park, and helped devise a vehicle and pedestrian traffic plan for the French Quarter. He also put in motion the initiative to install a concrete sidewalk on the levee and urged a bicycle path along the levee to Audubon Park.

A listing and discussion of efforts to minimize anomalous intrusions on the visitor's experience of the byway. This might include landscaping to screen an industrial site, relocating utility wires and poles, or planning for the sensitive location of wireless telecommunications towers along the byway.

As a state-licensed landscaping contractor and horticulturist, Tom Aicklen, owner of Aries 27 Building and Landscaping, Inc. has ample expertise and talent to devise appropriate minimization plans for all trails.

Documentation of compliance with all existing local, state, and federal laws about the control of outdoor advertising. Federal regulations prohibit all new billboards along designated scenic byways that are classified as federal-aid primary, national highway system, or interstate roads. States are free to impose stricter controls on billboards along scenic byways. Your CMP should also address the continuous designation of the road to ensure that billboard companies will not be able to find a loophole in your byway designation that would allow them to erect billboards along the corridor.

Our partners in the DOTD will assure compliance to all existing and required regulations.

A plan to make sure that the number and placement of highway signs will not get in the way of scenery, but still be sufficient to help tourists find their way. This includes, where appropriate, signs for international tourists who may not speak English fluently. Two popular and effective ways of addressing this issue are logo signs and tourist-oriented directional signs (TODS). Logo signs are located on interstate highway rights-of-way and advertise gas, food, camping, and lodging at nearby exits. Highway-oriented businesses can advertise their company's symbol, name, trademark, or a combination of these things on a logo sign. A few states, like Utah and Maine, provide TODS primarily on non-interstate rural highways to help motorists find local businesses. TODS indicate only the name of local attractions, mileage to the establishment, and direction.

Each themed trail will have appropriate signage and logo ID that will relate to non-verbal pictographic interpretation. Informative interactive interpretative ODT>Outdoor Display technology relative to site specific location and interest.

Plans for how to market and publicize the byway. Most marketing plans highlight the area's intrinsic qualities and promote interest in the byway that is consistent with resource protection efforts and maintenance of the byway's desired character.

As owner and manager of several public relations, promotional, video production, publishing, and advertising businesses, Tom Aicklen has the knowledge, experience, talent, and interest that will enhance his considerable expertise in the environmental conservation and restoration field

Any proposals for modifying the roadway, including an evaluation of design standards and how proposed changes may affect the byway's intrinsic qualities. Byway groups should work with their state department of transportation to adopt context-sensitive highway design standards for the byway. Context-sensitive design takes into account the area's built and natural environment; the environmental, scenic, aesthetic, historic, community, and preservation impacts of a road project; and provides access for other modes of transportation.

As a historian, outdoors sportsman, explorer, and civic preservation activist, Tom Aicklen, has a lifetime of personal cultural heritage immersion.

A description of what you plan to do to explain and interpret your byway's significant resources to visitors. Interpretation can include visitor centers, publications, leaflets, audio tours, information panels, video and virtual reality documentaries, and special events. In this category, creativity makes a big difference

The LHC was the first to designate Heritage Sites along significant Heritage Corridors and Themed Trail using DODT—Designed Outdoor Display Technology, coupled with GPS and digital imaging utilizing interactive smart phone technology.

My observation:

THIS CMP IS THE FIRST OF ITS KIND. DESPITE MILLIONS OF DOLLARS SPENT BY THE STATE AND LOCAL TOURISM BUREAUCRACY IN PREVIOUS YEARS, ALL THAT THE PUBLIC GOT FOR ITS WASTED TAX DOLLARS WERE SOME MARKER SIGNS SPACED PERIODICALLY ALONG CERTAIN ROADS. THESE SIGNS FEATURE A STUPID-LOOKING RED CAR AND THE WORDS “SCENIC BYWAY.” NOTHING MUCH ELSE WAS DONE.

It is my intention to develop our Louisiana’s Scenic Bayous, Byways, Bikeways, and Blueways Initiative to the point of being designated a National Scenic Byway or an All-American Road across the Southeast Louisiana Lakes & Rivers National Heritage Area.

Although we do not presently have any National Forest designation in the fourteen Florida and River Parishes, we do have several National Wildlife Refuges: Big Branch Marsh National Wildlife Refuge, Bouge Chitto National Wildlife Refuge, and Cat Island National Wildlife Refuge.

Cat Island National Wildlife Refuge
Cat Island National Wildlife Refuge was established on October 27, 2000 as the 526th refuge in the National Wildlife Refuge System. It is located near the town of St. Francisville, Louisiana, which is 30 miles north of Baton Rouge. The refuge was established to conserve, restore, and manage native forested wetland habitats for migratory birds, aquatic resources, and endangered and threatened plants and animals. Additionally, it was created to encourage the use of volunteers and facilitate partnerships among the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, local communities, and conservation organizations to promote public awareness of resources of the refuge and the National Wildlife Refuge System.

Big Branch Marsh National Wildlife Refuge was formed in 1994 by a local grassroots effort with the Lacombe Heritage Center, which grew out of the movement to Save Our Lake. It is comprised of 18,000 acres of pine flatwoods, oak ridges, fresh, brackish and saltwater marsh. This diverse habitat is a wonderful example of the natural coastline of Lake Pontchartrain surrounded by fast developing communities.

Bogue Chitto National Wildlife Refuge was created in 1980 and encompasses 36,000 acres of the Pearl River Basin. Located northeast of Slidell, LA, this beautiful southern swampland is one of the least disturbed in the country.

Louisiana Byways Program

Despite our voiced concerns and efforts to establish scenic trails in our region, this program has largely been ineffective and moribund until 2006 when two guys from Iowa were paid with a federal grant about $300,000 to come down, drive around for a couple of weeks, and then tell our bureaucrats how to run the Scenic Byways program.

Louisiana Byways Program

The Louisiana Byways Program is an ongoing program function of the Louisiana Office of Tourism, a division of the Louisiana Department of Culture, Recreation & Tourism under the leadership of the Lieutenant Governor. To fulfill this directive, the LA Office of Tourism has undertaken several initiatives; including one to develop and sustain a viable and compelling collection of Louisiana Byways. In 2006, the Office of Tourism identified needs for a statewide byway program plan; statewide byway marketing materials; and new and updated corridor management plans for byways in the collection. Accordingly, Office of Tourism received a National Scenic Byways Program grant awarded by the Federal Highway Administration to support the revitalization of the Byways Program.


Leading the effort for the Department of Culture, Recreation & Tourism is Doug Bourgeois, State Byway Coordinator. In turn, the Department of Culture, Recreation & Tourism retained Peter A. Mayer Advertising, Inc. and David L. Dahlquist Associates, LLC to assist with planning, developing and marketing the Louisiana Byways Program and preparing Corridor Management Plans for individual byways except the Louisiana Scenic Bayous Byway, which remains autonomous under the direction of the Lacombe Heritage Center, which has creatively expanded it to include a matrix of Ped, Peddle, and Paddle land and aquatic trails: the Louisiana Scenic Bayous, Byways, Bikeways, and Blueways Initiative.



Submitted by Tom Aicklen

Project Coordinator

Louisiana Scenic, Bayous, Byway, Bikeways, & Blueways Initiative.

Kaw-U-Tz, a Caddo Nation member, 1906The Caddo nation spread out through the parts of Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, and...
09/29/2023

Kaw-U-Tz, a Caddo Nation member, 1906

The Caddo nation spread out through the parts of Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas. The tribe dealt mainly in farming and did not like outsiders. Their farming skills were unparalleled, as they were able to grow squash, beans, and corn in areas that were humid swamps.

09/22/2023

🤣🤣🤣 I can't

Chahta imanumpa ish anumpola hinla ho?
09/19/2023

Chahta imanumpa ish anumpola hinla ho?

08/25/2023

Advancing American Energy IndependenceAir Products is developing the Louisiana Clean Energy Complex, which will advance our energy independence by creating clean energy at a plant constructed and operated along the Gulf Coast. This $4.5 billion project is Air Products’ largest investment in the Un...

08/20/2023

Report of Lacombe Heritage Center

Corridor Management Program and Plan

THE GRANT
The grant is the means.

THE HCTTRTEDI
The Heritage Corridors & Themed Trails Rural Tourism Economic Development Initiative is the method.

THE CAPITAL RC&D
The Capital Resource Conservation & Development Council is the way.

THE CMP
The Corridor Management Plan is the result.

THE LRNHA
The Lakes & Rivers National Heritage Area is the goal.

The Federal Highway Administration awarded the grant to the Lacombe Heritage Center in 2007 to develop a Corridor Management Plan for the Louisiana Scenic Bayous Byway.

The expanded Louisiana Scenic Bayous, Byways, Bikeways, and Blueways Initiative is 520 miles of designated highway, bike trails, and aquatic blueway infrastructure that connects communities across the region of the fourteen Florida and River Parishes.

Using input from the grassroots: Grasp Our Vision—Share Your Vision, the Heritage Corridors & Themed Trails Rural Tourism Economic Development Initiative is developing a Corridor Management Plan for the Northshore region of Southeast Louisiana.

Our Corridor Management Plan uses and improves existing infrastructure to enhance communities and attract tourism based economic development. It uses inherent intrinsic qualities of the region and our indigenous human resources.

Our CMP will leverage our qualities and resources to develop a Lakes & Rivers National Heritage Area.

08/16/2023

Ped, Peddle, and Paddle...hike,bike, and kayak our land and aquatic trails.

Cool.
08/16/2023

Cool.

Slidell’s latest tourist attraction, Antique Umbrella Alley, is now on full display!

Grab your cameras and head to this photo hotspot in Olde Towne. It’s the first umbrella alley in Louisiana and has more than 80 umbrellas lining the street. It’s called Antique Umbrella Alley due to its location, right in the heart of the Antique District in Olde Towne! Stop in some of the adorable antique shops and eateries along the way.

📍 First Street and Erlanger

08/12/2023

On this day
6 years ago

Bayou Lacombe is the Gateway to the 18,000 acre Big Branch Marsh National Wildlife Refuge, an ecological treasure of subtropical rain forests and wetlands that extends like an emerald necklace along the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain; a complex of swamps, marshes, lagoons, bays and bayous, pine savanna forest, and live oak ridges, with varied avian, mammalian, reptilian, and marine wildlife, some of which had been on the endangered species list, but are now making a comeback: Brown Pelican, Manatee, Gulf Sturgeon, Egret, Bald Eagle, Alligator.
For years, the pristine marsh along Lake Rd. had been used as a dumping ground for all sorts of illegal trash, including construction debris, appliances, furniture, hot water heaters, toilets, old tires and cars, even an old school bus, office equipment, plus all manner of household garbage, and a constant supply of marine trash and recreational litter; all brought in and discarded or dumped by thoughtless, trashy people. Despite the nay-sayers, who maintained that no one could clean it up and change the habits of the dumpers, the two environmental divisions of the Lacombe Heritage Center did it. Our initial work is being continued through the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, headquartered in Lacombe, and an occasional litter pickup by Keep Lacombe Beautiful.
Organized in 1993, STEP, St. Tammany Environmental Patrol became the educational and recruitment arm of the Lacombe Heritage Center, which involved Junior and Senior High school students in our Junior Ranger Corps, and LEAP, Lacombe Environmental Action Project, which became the implementation tool of our Junior Ranger Corps. In 2004, our Adopt-A-Spot: Learn, Work, Play initiative won a Civic Award from the Gulf of Mexico Program in a five state competition.
Through these two divisions, cooperating with Jerry and Clara Crawford of Big Branch and Cliff and Connie Glockner of Lacombe in the grassroots movement to SAVE OUR LAKE, we became watchdog citizens, attending parish and state meetings; lobbying the legislative committees, politicians and the governor; and taking legal action to restrict the shell dredgers with their high paid lobbyists and lawyers from further destroying the ecology of Lake Pontchartrain. Later this same grassroots group of citizens saved Cane Bayou and the Big Branch Marsh from being dredged and filled for commercial and residential development. They also prevented wetlands from being filled to develop a golf course in Fontainebleau State Park.
Geological and topographical
For thousands of years the Earth was in the grips of the last Ice Age. Ice sheets covered the northern hemisphere as much as a mile thick as far south as present day Chicago and scoured out the Great Lakes from the bedrock. With much of the world's waters locked up in ice, the ocean levels were several hundred feet lower than present, exposing "land bridges" throughout much of the world, including the Bering Sea connection between Asia and North America. Fierce Arctic winds swept across the dry plains of the American West carrying with it the fine particulate known as loess and deposited it in ripples, like sand on a beach, across much of the South.
In St. Tammany Parish bricks were made from this loess and shipped by schooner from Bayou Lacombe and Bayou Bonfouca to build most of the French Quarter.
About 20,000 years ago, the present period of global warming started to melt the ice. Melt water rushed down the center of the continent creating the Mississippi River Basin with its major tributaries: the Missouri and Ohio and its distributaries the Atchafalaya and the Pearl Rivers. Trillions of tons of earth, rock and sediment were carried along with the rushing water and deposited into the Gulf of Mexico, creating the wetlands of south Louisiana.
Although underlain by a layer of limestone created during the Mesozoic era as a vast inland sea, as the rivers changed course in response to hydrodynamics of lengthening shoreline, sediment grew into the parishes south of Lakes Maurepas and Pontchartrain: St. Bernard, Terrebonne, Lafourche, Plaquemine, St. Charles, St. James, St. John the Baptist, Jefferson, and Orleans, trapping the gulf waters behind their prominences. The fresh water from rivers turned the lakes into a brackish estuarine system of incredible fertility as an incubator and nursery for all manner of marine life. Rivers and bayous on the north shore are usually deeper than the lakes due to eautrophication and sediment.
Until the 1930s, when the federal government began constructing levees along the Mississippi, the annual flooding of the river would spread nutrient-rich sediment into the wetlands. Once this life-renewing sediment was cut off, the wetlands were deprived and began a slow demise, succumbing to natural erosion forces from the Gulf of Mexico. This was exacerbated and accelerated by the deliberate fragmentation of the coastal marshes and wetlands by oil exploration companies digging service canals to position and supply their rigs.
Louisiana's sedimentary wetlands, deposited over thousands of years, in less than 80 years have been destroyed and are dying. Gulf waters encroach upon the land endangering homes, towns, and cities. The City of New Orleans is doomed. Beneath the surface, faults threaten to give way, separating huge chunks of sedimentary wetlands and sloughing them off from the stable continental land mass into the Gulf. Every hour of every day we are losing Louisiana.
Ask why. If people are not aware, they will not care. Ask. Learn. What does it gain us? What can we do? What can you do? Is there hope? Are there practical solutions? We are working on it. You can help. Our job is to provide awareness. Help us Restore the Northshore. We need Doers and Donors
Follow us on Facebook. Like us. Share. Spread the word. Lend a hand.

Address

29069 Clesi Avenue
Lacombe, LA
70445

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Lacombe Heritage Center posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Museum

Send a message to Lacombe Heritage Center:

Videos

Share

Our Story

Altho we are not traditionally structured as a nonprofit, but rather as a business, we do not insist upon dues but upon doers. Anyone with a passion for accomplishment is welcome. We solicit doers and donors. Whether you wish to contribute time, material resources, or funds, all donations are tax deductible under our 501 (c) 3 federal tax exempt status. Federal tax ID # 72-143 2290. Info contact through: [email protected]. 985-882-7218


Other Lacombe museums

Show All