Assessment of Historic Landscape, Highway 45 Borrow Pit, Jefferson Parish, Louisiana

Earth Search, Inc., undertook a limited cultural resource investigation of a proposed borrow pit for a hurricane protection feature of the West Bank Hurricane Protection Project. Work was performed under contract to the New Orleans District, US Army Corps of Engineers. The project area lies on the west side of the Highway 45 levee and east and north of the Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve boundary. Fieldwork consisted of a reconnaissance survey of the APE. Systematic transect survey was undertaken wherever possible. Cultural features were identified and mapped however no excavations were undertaken. A metal detector was also used in an attempt to locate artifacts likely to be associated with the features. Investigations centered on the assessment of the cultural features as parts of a unified landscape associated with the overall theme of agriculture in the Barataria Basin. Historic maps and aerial photographs were examined and compared to present-day maps. Historic research focused on determination of the likely origin of these features and establishing a context for their evaluation. While the current project study area landscape contains observable historic features, consisting of elements of a standard nineteenth-century cane field drainage system, it does not encompass all of a single integrated field drainage system. The destruction of the major part of this specific field drainage system, and the degradation of features present in the study area by natural processes has compromised the integrity of the historic landscape and eliminated its ability to convey significance. The project area is not and does not possess elements of a significant rural historic landscape.