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Louisiana’s Tangipahoa River is Clean

After two decades of effort and hundreds of thousands of dollars, the Tangipahoa River is being removed from Louisiana's impaired rivers list.

The river flows for 79 miles, from the Mississippi-Louisiana state line to Lake Pontchartrain. It contained high levels of ammonia-nitrogen, mercury, fecal coliform and sediment. The river had already been the focus of watershed management for 20 years when Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals first posted a health advisory in 1988 because of high levels of fecal bacteria. Bacteria counts that signal the presence of raw sewerage used to range in the thousands per test unit at many spots along the river.

Since 2005, the Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation has worked with EPA and operators of more than 200 sewage treatment plants along the river to assist them in cleaning up the water that is recycled. Stricter local, state and federal laws were also passed over the years to keep raw sewage out of the river.

So now the alligators are enjoying the river as much as the humans do, claim local residents. Now if only the man and beast could reach an understanding.

More information:

The Tangipahoa River’s success story

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