This 110-acre public park was created in the mid-1970s during a period of municipal park expansion and renovations and named for Joseph Berengher Brechtel II, the administrator of the New Orleans Recreation Department in the 1940s and 1950s who established one of the nation’s most innovative municipal recreation departments during that time. Although in Orleans Parish, this park is adjacent to Jefferson and Plaquemines parishes and therefore serves the entire West Bank region. Among its features were a golf course (now closed), lagoons, and areas of native plants and natural habitats for migrating birds. Severely damaged by hurricanes Katrina (2005) and Gustav (2008), the park became severely degraded with unrepaired damage, invasive vegetative species, and hydrological problems. A master plan for a restored “Regional Ecological Park” was completed in 2011 by landscape architects Brown and Danos of Baton Rouge, but it has not been fully implemented.