*******************************************************
Save Our Wetlands, Inc. is a Louisiana non-profit 501(3)(c) corporation formed in 1974.
Save Our Wetlands, Inc. offers educational workshops and seminars on environmental awareness topics. To schedule such, contact Save Our Wetlands at:
Since their formation SOWL has been fighting for you to save our precious wetlands and to develop educational programs for environmental awareness and ecological improvement.
FACT: While politicians talk, SOWL sues! SOWL has been involved in countless lawsuits involving Lake Ponchartrain on every subject....from the New Orleans Levee Board Airport Expansion Plan, Bucktown Marina Expansion Plan, New Orleans Mosquito Control Drainage schemes in wetlands of New Orleans East, Eden Isle Subdivision on the north shores of Lake Ponchartrain, Orlanda Subdivision, Corps of Engineers Hurricane Barrier Project, shell dredging in Lake Ponchartrain, Waterford Nuclear Plant...to the Marathon Oil Company canals in the wetlands of St. Charles and St. John the Baptist parishes.
FACT: SOWL SAVED LAKE PONCHARTRAIN - In 1977, SOWL obtained an injunction from U.S. District Judge Charles Schwartz enjoining the Corps of Engineers from building a billion dollar dam at the Chef Mentaur Rigolets Fort Pike Area, where the Gulf of Mexico enters into Lake Ponchartrain. Had SOWL not obtained this injunction, Lake Ponchartrain would be a stagnant body of water and over 28,000 acres of wetlands in New Orleans East would have been developed into the Orlanda Subdivision.
FACT: SOWL filed two lawsuits against NASA's plan to test advanced solid rocket motor fuel in Gulfport, Mississippi. Each static test firing would have released 235,000 pounds of hydrogen chloride gas and 365,000 pounds of aluminum oxide gas falling greatly on the Honey Island Swamp and into Lake Ponchartrain. SOWL worked diligently with the Confederation of American Scientists in Washington, D.C. to stop congressional funding for the proposed ecological holocaust.
FACT: SOWL filed suit against the proposed Formosa Chemical Plant - described as "environmental outlaws" by Texas authorities. This plant would have destroyed the last remaining green belt left in the New Orleans area known as "cancer corridor." Formosa withdrew its plan after the SOWL law suit was filed.
FACT: SOWL has produced over a dozen thirty minute television programs shown on Cox Cable in New Orleans. SOWL is presently attempting to establish a SOWL environmental television network in New Orleans. The Honorable Marc Morial, Mayor of New Orleans, has issued a strong letter of support on this project. SOWL is the founder of ECOVISION.
FACT: SOWL has filed suit against the New Orleans Levee Board's proposed $20 million hotel to be constructed on the shores of Lake Ponchartrain next to a gambling boat and proposed four-mile island.
FACT: SOWL and three other environmental plaintiffs files suit to stop the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers West Pearl River Dredging Project. This Corps project would have opened up the West Pearl to commercial barge traffic and destroyed one of America's remaining wild rivers. U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Porteous issued an injunction against this Corps "Pork Barrel" Project.
FACT: SOWL is presently fighting to save 2,900 wetland acres on the north shore of Lake Ponchartrain. Through litigation and pressure, SOWL has been able to keep Eden Isles Subdivision from developing approximately 2,900 acres of a once vast wetland sanctuary in Slidell, Louisiana. SOWL is attempting to get this tract restored into a state or federal wetland sanctuary park.
FACT: SOWL has always fought bitterly against the United States Army Corps of Engineers. Since 1974, SOWL has consistently put pressure and exposed the Corps, New Orleans Division, for blatant and reckless issuance of permits that are ecologically disastrous.In 1975, SOWL filed documents in the United States District Court requesting that a special Grand Jury be formed to investigate the Corps of Engineers participation in federal criminal laws for permitting and abetting the illegal diking and damning of navigable bodies of water in Lake Ponchartrain resulting in the Eden Isles Subdivision and the destruction of 5,300 acres of a once vast wetland sanctuary.
FACT: SOWL has also filed a suit naming the same tract of land around Lake Pontchartrain in U. S. District Court, New Orleans, against the U. S. Corps of Engineers for issuing a permit to Tammany Holding Corporation to develop this tract without requiring an environmental impact study as required by the National Environmental Policy Act.
The legal department of SOWL was also actively involved in the Alaskan Valdez disaster and are avid supporters of SAVE THE DOLPHINS.
If you would like to make a tax deductible donattion you can email us at: