Clean sweep

If all goes well, in about two months, the residents of Coin du Lestin subdivision off Bayou Liberty will finally be able to get their boats to the lake, and the marshlands in Big Branch National Wildlife Refuge will start to rebuild to pre-Katrina levels.

This week, St. Tammany Parish started a project that has been four years in the making. The idea is to clean out the Coin du Lestin canals of hurricane debris so that residents can navigate the waters, and to help Big Branch replace over 15,000 acres of wetlands that were destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.

The $1.29 million project, which is funded by the parish will take two months to complete according to Shannon Davis, St. Tammany Director of Public Works.

Parish President Kevin Davis has been trying to get the federal government to pay for the project for the past four years, but has come up against bureaucratic hurdles.