Southeastern NEWS
                                                       Southeastern Louisiana University
                                           Public Information Office
                                           SLU 10880, Hammond, LA 70402
                                           504-549-2341/fax 504-549-2061
                                           
    Date: May 5, 2000
      Contact:                           Rene Abadie    12


SLU TO PLAY ROLE IN LAKE PONTCHARTRAIN BASIN RESTORATION ACT

     HAMMOND -- Southeastern Louisiana University will serve as a technical resource
under the Lake Pontchartrain Restoration Act recently approved by the U.S. House of
Representatives.
     The bill, sponsored by U.S. Rep. David Vitter (R-LA), was passed by the House on
Wednesday (May 3)  and sent to the Senate. Funding for the restoration act -- approximately
$140 million over five years -- would come from the Environmental Protection Agency.
     Under the legislation, Southeastern will work with the University of New Orleans, the
lead technical resource, in performing educational outreach activities in the 16 parishes that make
up the Lake Pontchartrain Basin.    
     William N. Norton, professor and head of the Southeastern Department of Biological
Sciences, testified on behalf of the legislation earlier this year before the Water Resources and
Environment Subcommittee of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. 
     Southeastern operates Turtle Cove, an important research and monitoring facility on Pass
Manchac that has helped attract a faculty with strong ecological interests. Turtle Cove can be
used to help monitor water quality in the western part of the basin and as an educational outreach
facility for scientists, researchers and educators. Over the past decade, the university's scientists
have used funding from the National Science Foundation to aid in the education of elementary
and secondary teachers in the area of wetland restoration and monitoring projects. The university
also conducts a program designed to restore cypress swamps, which have been depleted due to 
                             -MORE-

LAKE RESTORATION -- Add One
logging and environmental factors.
     Norton said the program would provide the mechanism to coordinate diverse efforts with
the goal of restoring the basin to sound ecological health. A key component, he said, is public
education.
     "Any large, comprehensive environmental program requires a change in attitude and 
behavior of  the public," he added. "We need to help develop an acute awareness of the causes of
wetland degradation and a true appreciation of the necessity of restoring these ecosystems to
their original states."
     Norton said the influence of the Lake Pontchartrain Basin extends far beyond the its 16-
parish physical boundaries that cover about 5,000 square miles. The basin functions as a nursery
for the freshwater and marine organisms critical to the economy of Louisiana.
     "Collectively Louisiana's wetlands provide over 30 percent of the nation's total
commercial fisheries harvest and serve as the over-wintering habitat for 70 percent of the
migratory waterfowl of the central and Mississippi flyway," he said. "The efforts to restore the
Lake Pontchartrain Basin could function as a model for the restoration of other threatened
wetland ecosystems throughout the country."
     Norton said the basin is unique because of its location in a densely populated area that is
experiencing extensive ecological stresses associated with growth and development.
     "We have a moral responsibility and an economic incentive to restore and maintain
wetlands and estuarine ecosystems, which represent the most productive type of ecosystem in the
world," he said. "The future health, integrity, and sustainability of the Ponchartrain Basin
ecosystem are largely dependent upon how we act in the near future."
                             -SLU-
Press release available online at www.selu.edu/NewsEvents/PublicInfoOffice/newsp00.htm