What is the deal with the giant Petri dish in Baton Rouge (City Park Lake)?

It’s where we dumped the hopes and dreams of other teams last season.

They haven’t aged well

SWB took a dookie in the lake when she took office just to even out the playing field re: beautification.

Can’t make one side of the city nice, so let the nice part of the city turn to shite.

I thought I remember a few months ago someone saying they found some kind of fish that eats the algae but I guess not. Its a real eyesore though.

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What is the deal with the giant Petri dish in Baton Rouge (City Park Lake)?

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We just spent $250,000 changing the name of a school. No time for trivial shite like a damn lake.

They’re artificial lakes which were dug by the WPA during the Great Depression for 2 reasons:
1. To replace low swampland with recreational space
2. To prevent the site from being chosen as the location for Southern University (an HBCU)

Because they’re artificial, and the natural state of that land is to be a low cypress swamp, they must be maintained to prevent them from filling with sediment and returning to that state. They have not been maintained because there’s a lot of disagreement over who owns the property and who should pay for the work between various private landowners, whose property fronts on the lake, LSU, the State of Louisiana, DPW (who owns the streets running alongside the lakes), DPW (who maintains drainage infrastructure in the parish), the Federal government (who built them), and BREC (parish rec department who owns several parks fronting the lakes),

An expensive lakes master plan was drafted up several years back to clean up the lakes, dredge them, and improve the parks and walking paths surrounding them, but stakeholders failed to raise money for the project from BRAC (chamber of commerce), BRAF (area foundation which does a lot of urban planning), LSU, state Government, or local government.

Supposedly, a deal was reached early this year to fund phase one of the project, but it was put on hold indefinitely due to Covid.

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2. To prevent the site from being chosen as the location for Southern University (an HBCU)

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No. But I love that I can still find people to spout this.

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there’s a lot of disagreement over who owns the property and who should pay for the work between various private landowners, whose property fronts on the lake

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Unless they built the roads on private property nobody has property touching the lake that I can think of.

Let me rephrase: the government failed to maintain the property they own and now refuses to pay to repair the damage caused by their lack of maintenance. So, they’re creating smokescreens of bureaucracy while looking for private donations to bail them out.

IMO, BREC and DPW should be in charge of the lakes and be held responsible for not maintaining them. BREC has no shortage for cash and restoring the lakes should be a much higher priority than building a new zoo when they don’t maintain the one the have.

The LSU lakes are getting dredged soon. Like actually