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June 2010 GreenSpace Connect Digest
This issue of GreenSpace Connect is dedicated to projects that were made possible through funding from the Commonwealth’s Growing Greener grants. In addition to the projects mentioned below, Growing Greener grants have protected working farms, cleaned up rivers and streams, created and improved parks and trails, and conserved special places. To contribute or
suggest future stories, please contact us.
List of Stories
Growing Greener a critical source of funding for PA conservation
Since its inception, the Growing Greener grant program has been hugely successful, directing critical investments to every county in the state. In the past four years alone, Growing Greener has helped protect more than 33,700 acres of family farmland, over 42,300 acres of threatened open space, and has improved public recreation through 234 community park projects. Growing Greener was originally created by the Ridge-Schweiker administration in December 1999. It was then reauthorized by Gov. Schweiker in June 2002, and expanded by Gov. Rendell in 2005 via a bond issue that was overwhelmingly approved by voters.
Even with such a comprehensive record of success, the Commonwealth faces a variety of pressing problems that threaten our rich natural heritage, our quality of life, our health and our prosperity. Pennsylvania is losing three times as much forest, wildlife habitat, farmland and other open spaces to overdevelopment than we are able to conserve; The Commonwealth currently has 16,000 miles of streams that are unsafe for fishing or swimming, and 5,000 miles that are polluted by acid mine drainage; And more than 2,000 family farms remain on a statewide waiting list requesting protection from encroaching development so that they may continue Pennsylvania’s rich agricultural legacy.
In the face of these challenges, Pennsylvania cannot stand to lose Growing Greener. This strongly bipartisan initiative has provided investments in farmland preservation, conservation of open space, stream restoration, and improved outdoor recreation. With resources running out, now is the time to develop a new source of funding to continue those critical projects originally made possible through Growing Greener grants.
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Chester County’s Franklin Township expands White Clay Greenway
through GG2 Funding
 Franklin
Township in Chester County has become a key player in the preservation
efforts within the White Clay Creek Watershed. In 2008 and 2009,
the Growing Greener 2 (GG2) Grant program allowed Franklin
Township to acquire three properties along the creek for a total of 233
acres preserved. The two properties purchased in 2008 are a part of the
White Clay Greenway, an ongoing preservation effort that is expanding
protected land upriver from White Clay Creek Preserve in London Britain
to White Clay Creek State Park in Delaware. The third property is now
part of a municipal park and is available to the public as open space
and for recreation.
2010 marks the White Clay Creek’s 10th anniversary as a Wild and Scenic
River. The entire watershed was designated part of the Wild and Scenic
Rivers System, marking the first time that a full watershed received this designation. As a result, watershed protection
in White Clay Creek has taken on what is referred to as a
“beyond-the-riverbank” approach. This approach considers a wide variety
of factors that can influence water quality and habitat health.
 Since the river is protected as a watershed in its entirety,
federal Wild and Scenic River legislation demands that the river be
managed in such a way as to enhance water quality, natural resources,
and the overall quality of life. Wild and Scenic Rivers are designated
due to their outstanding natural or historical value, of which Clay
Creek has both and is still close to several metropolitan centers.
Preservation around the creek has become an ongoing effort in both
Pennsylvania and Delaware. The creek, which starts in Chester County, PA
and flows into New Castle County, DE, drains a 107 square-mile
watershed before flowing into the Christina River near Newport, DE. The
watershed is home to almost 100,000 people with growing pressure from
developers, and preservation in the watershed has been one of the
best ways that municipalities have been protecting it from development.
Chester County, with cooperation from governmental and non-profit
partners, has managed to preserve several hundred acres of property
bordering the waterway over the last couple of years.
Franklin Township’s Open Space Preservation program has been particularly
well-organized and successful. Their strategy of seeking out
matching funds from multiple sources has allowed them to purchase land
with high quality natural features using mostly state and county
funding. However, with a significant amount of grant funding coming from
the nearly expired GG2 grants, they might have trouble finding matching
funds from the state in the near future.
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Collaboration makes preservation of
Greenway Connecter possible in Limerick Township, MontCo
Collaboration among the state, Montgomery County, the Natural Lands Trust (NLT), Montgomery County Lands Trust (MCLT), Limerick Township, and other public and private stakeholders ensured the preservation of over 80 acres of open space. Adjacent to both Pennsylvania State Game Lands and Limerick Community Park, this parcel is known as the Kurylo property, and includes meadows and forests, water sources and opportunities for recreation. This project connects to Stone Hill an existing 800 acre greenway through Limerick and Lower Frederick Townships. Stone Hill ties into the proposed Swamp Creek Greenway which is slated to tie into the Perkiomen Trail. This will offer a direct connection to central Montgomery County and the larger Schuylkill River Trail.
The Commonwealth’s support for the project was funded in part by the
Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR) through Growing
Greener 2 bond revenue. After five years of investing in
community-based greening initiatives, the state Growing Greener 2 bond is quickly running out of funds.
Pennsylvania DCNR had a particular stake in the property’s acquisition due
to its location within the larger Schuylkill Highlands Landscape
initiative. “The Schuylkill Highlands initiative is a DCNR program
working with land conservation partners, locally driven planning, and
community economic revitalization efforts that are tied to the
protection of our natural resources and cultural assets,” stated former
DCNR Secretary Michael DiBerardinis. “Among the goals in the Schuylkill
Highlands are to protect 50 percent of the remaining undeveloped land,
and to provide more opportunities to connect residents and visitors to
the outdoors. This project helps us meet those goals.”
Each year the
Green Futures program honors local communities for their outstanding
achievements and efforts demonstrating exemplary land protection,
effective partnerships, and visionary open space projects.
MCLT awarded Limerick Township a Green Futures Achievement Award for
the project because of their recognition of the property’s value and
their aggressive stance to protect it from development.
With help from matching state grants, Montgomery
County is successfully building a multi-municipal greenway. In 2003, by
a majority of 77 percent, voters passed a major referendum supporting
land conservation in their county. This referendum, referred to as the
Green Fields/Green Towns program, has preserved 3,440 acres and
facilitated 93 municipal open space projects, located in 60 of the
county’s 62 municipalities. By supplementing Montgomery County grants
with matching funds from the state Growing Greener fund, the County’s
program has been a great example of how multi-source funding can
preserve valuable properties and create large contiguous blocks of open
space.
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MontCo awarded grant to continue development of Cynwyd Heritage
Trail
Lower Merion Township in Montgomery County was recently awarded a
Growing Greener 2 grant to continue their development of the Cynwyd Heritage
Trail. The trail will link to the increasingly popular Schuylkill River
Trail and allow for direct access to Valley Forge Park and the
Perkiomen Trail to the west, as well as Philadelphia to the east.
Funded partially through PA Department of Conservation and Natural
Resources’ (DCNR) Growing Greener 2 Program (GG2), this grant will go
toward general trailhead improvements. Montgomery County has been
instrumental in this project’s success. Through their Green
Fields/Green Towns Program, MontCo has committed over 80 percent of the
money needed to fund the first phase of this innovative trail
initiative. When completed, the 2.5 mile linear park will extend from
the Cynwyd R6 train station to the Schuylkill River and provide access
to 350 acres of public open space. Built on a long-unused section of
SEPTA’s R6 line, groundbreaking for the first phase of the project is
slated to begin in late 2010, and will span across public, private, and
institutional lands. This investment will provide recreational,
economic, community-building and educational opportunities to both local
and regional residents.
The design includes a main 12-foot wide asphalt path and narrower
secondary walking path constructed of crushed gravel. At the trail’s
western terminus in Manayunk, it will connect to the Schuylkill River
Trail. This extends along the Schuylkill River from
Philadelphia to Pottsville and provides access to the larger East Coast
Greenway, which when completed will span nearly 3,000 miles from Canada
to Key West.
Christopher Leswing, Assistant Director of Planning in Lower Merion
Township, stresses the importance
of this development. He explains, “The Cynwyd Heritage Trail is a
keystone link in the Schuylkill River Trail” and emphasizes that “this
project is part of a larger and very ambitious multi-community project
that is driving trail development up and down the Schuylkill River”.
The grant was funded through a variety of sources including the state’s
Keystone Recreation, Park and Conservation Fund (Key 93), the
Environmental Stewardship Fund (GG1), Growing Greener Fund (GG2), and
federal sources. In addition, the grant required an equal match by the
township. Grant funding from the state through DCNR assists hundreds of
organizations and communities across the state to plan, acquire and
develop active and passive recreation space, as well as create trails
and conserve sensitive natural landscapes.
Community support for the trail has come from a variety of different
sources, including the non-profit organization Friends of Cynwyd
Heritage Trail. Formed in the fall of 2008, this group of members and
volunteers has worked hard to ensure that the community’s vision of the
trail becomes a reality. Their work earned them Lower Merion Township’s
2009 Emerald Necklace Award for Open Space Preservation.
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