Cypremort Park gets $4.5M in upgrades

Construction of several berms of stone boulders off Cypremort Point State Park was set to be completed by Patriot Construction and Industrial this week, in an effort to assist in protection from storm winds and beach erosion there.
The project is the first of a several-stage process by the offices of Gene Reynolds, head of Louisiana state parks, and State Representative Sam Jones, to renovate and revitalize Cypremort Point State Park.
“We are going to spend $4.5 million here at this park,” Reynolds said. “We are also going to bring sand to replace this sand, and with the money we are saving on these projects, we are going to put in a row of camper sites, for drive-thru campers.
“The reason this is such a big deal, is the administration from 2008 to 2014 swept (away) $15 million of maintenance funds. So, we basically had nothing.
“This year, between the $16.4 million of funds that we got from the BP settlement, and another five or six (million dollars,) we are going to spend a little over $20 million in our parks, statewide.”
Reynolds went on to say his office intends to give every state park in Louisiana “a face lift,” adding that he intends to lobby next year’s legislature to push for enough funds to install sewer systems, and hopefully wi-fi and cell phone coverage to every park in the state as well.
Pointing to the berms, Reynolds said, “The significance of this, is that this is progress, out of the box, with money that was announced about a month ago, from the governor and lieutenant governor, and I’ve got to say, my boss, the lieutenant governor, has worked very hard to get this done.”
Aside from new beach sand and new camp sites, Reynolds also said he plans to pave the roads at Cypremort Point park. However, the sand must come first, due to the size of the trucks involved in transporting it.
Jones and Reynolds said they conferred with each other by note during the deliberations and debate of last month’s special session, to procure the funds they are now utilizing.
Jones cited the funding secured for St. Mary Parish as “the second biggest allocation behind Jefferson Parish.”
Apart from the $4.5 million for the Cypremort Point project, he said, “We got $650,000 out of his (Reynolds’) fund to build a boat launch on the Bayou Teche at the Chitimacha Indian Reservation and another $200,000 to upgrade the boat landing on Grand Avoile Cove at Lake Fausse Pointe, so, almost $10 million for this parish.”