Camp Salmen upgrades revealed by consultants

CSRS Inc., a Baton Rouge based consulting firm, recently revealed a $20 million plan to upgrade Camp Salmen, a once thriving 1960s era Boy Scout camp near Slidell now abandoned and overrun with foliage.

With fields waste high, foliage crawling over wooden cabins and paint peeling off structures like potato chips, the firm delivered the three-phase plan in hopes of jolting the camp back to life.

Although unfunded, the plan, if and when implemented, aims to bring tourists back to the 106-acre plot that boasts nearly a mile of Bayou Liberty frontage and a live oak grove featuring some the region’s oldest tree specimens.

“This would be a major, major upgrade to Camp Salmen,” said Parish Councilman Steve Stefancik, whose district oversees the camp.

“The next step is putting the funds in place,” he said, referring to monies from local, state and mostly federal coffers.

The plan, to be implemented in phases, includes walking and biking trails, picnic places and an education center capable of housing 140 students, Stefancik said.

For more than 60 years from 1924 to 1980, the cypress swampland and mixed hardwood forest flourished when Boy Scouts of America held retreats and camping trips at the area.

But when the Boy Scouts hierarchy decided to move those retreats to Mississippi, the area floundered.

Determined not to let big box development destroy the unique historical, cultural and biological heritage of the area, parish government bought the track of land in hopes of one day reviving the area.

Several years ago, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, a division of the U.S. Department of Commerce, awarded a nearly $700,000 grant to St. Tammany Parish to help fund the purchase and eventually develop this summer’s plan, a move U.S. Rep. David Vitter, R-Metairie, said will “help preserve one of the most pristine wetlands areas in the state.”