ENROLLED
2015 Regular Session
HOUSE RESOLUTION NO. 152
BY REPRESENTATIVE BADON
A RESOLUTION
To urge and request that the Orleans Levee District and the Lake Pontchartrain Basin
Foundation not reopen the Pontchartrain Beach to the public.
WHEREAS, Pontchartrain Beach is a fifteen acre site located on the south shore of
Lake Pontchartrain in the city of New Orleans' Lakefront area, at the northern end of Elysian
Fields Avenue; and
WHEREAS, as there are no natural beaches occurring along the southern shore of
Lake Pontchartrain, Pontchartrain Beach was originally a brackish marsh and swampland
which provided a habitat for fish, shellfish, muskrats, osprey, alligators, and other native
flora and fauna; and
WHEREAS, in the 1830s, the swamp began to give way to human interests making
Pontchartrain Beach a recreational area; and
WHEREAS, since the inception of the Orleans Levee District in 1890 it has been the
owner of the property known as Pontchartrain Beach; and
WHEREAS, official Pontchartrain Beach construction began in the 1930s as a result
of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's "Works Progress Administration" and the Orleans
Levee District "Lakefront Improvement Project"; and
WHEREAS, in 1939, the Pontchartrain Beach Amusement Park was established and
at its peak the park had features such as a swimming pool and a waterfront stage for live
entertainment; and
WHEREAS, social and environmental factors led to the ultimate closure of
Pontchartrain Beach in 1983 with the major contributors to the park's decline being poor
water quality, gradual erosion, and hurricanes; and
WHEREAS, the beach reopened in the early 1990s, but in 2012, after two people
drowned in six weeks the beach was closed to public access; and
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WHEREAS, in certain areas of the lake near the beach there are blocks of concrete
called groins that can be slippery from algae buildups and depressions in the lake bottom
which is deeper near these structures because the wave action interacts with the rocks in the
lake; and
WHEREAS, the Orleans Levee District recently approved signing a lease with the
Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation that will allow the nonprofit to reopen the beach to the
public in the near future; and
WHEREAS, the conditions in the lake that were there when the two drowning deaths
occurred in 2012 still exist and as such opening the beach to the public once again will only
put the public at risk.
THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the House of Representatives of the
Legislature of Louisiana does hereby urge and request that the Orleans Levee District and
the Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation not reopen the Pontchartrain Beach to the public.
SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
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