Area gets $1.7 million conservation, recreation grants

MATT HUGHES

mhughes@timesleader.com

The state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources on Thursday announced the release of $23 million in grants for 189 conservation and recreation projects statewide, including $1,736,800 awarded for the purchase of five plots of land in Luzerne County.

Of those five grants, three totaling $895,700 were awarded to the North Branch Land Trust, a Back Mountain-based nonprofit that preserves land for conservation use.

“We’re very pleased in these tough economic times that were going to get these grants,” North Branch Land Trust Executive Director Paul Lumia said.

With the state grant money, the land trust will purchase 75 acres in Bear Creek Village along Route 115, 123 acres along Stockton Mountain Road in Hazle Township, and four parcels of land totaling 62 acres in Hazle Township and West Hazleton. In addition to protecting habitats and fragile ecosystems, Lumia said the group will improve existing trails, which it hopes to connect to existing trail networks such as the Delaware and Lehigh National Heritage Corridor.

The Stockton Mountain Road property is owned by land sales group Butler Enterprises, Hazleton, and was part of the Tench Cox estate prior to the company’s 1968 acquisition of it.

“They got it when Pennsylvania was formed, it goes that far back,” Butler Enterprises Manager Tom Ogorzalek said.

The Greater Hazleton Community Area New Development Organization will also transfer a parcel inside Valmont Industrial Park to the land trust.

“We think the project they are embarking on could have significant value for the Hazleton community,” Greater Hazleton CANDO President Kevin O’Donnell said. “I think it’s a very worthwhile endeavor.”

O’Donnell said rails from the former Wilkes-Barre Hazleton Railway Co. cross the land and that, in addition to making the rail bed into a trail, CANDO and the land trust have been discussing installing a monument on the land.

“It’s something that we should be proud of from the past,” he said.

The Greater Hazleton Area Civic Partnership was also awarded $198,000 for further development of approximately 1.76 miles of the Greater Hazleton Rail Trail from Lehigh Gorge Drive through State Game Lands 141 and connecting with Lehigh Gorge State Park in Foster Township.

Civic Partnership Executive Director Robert P. Skulsky said the project, which will convert rail beds to trails as well as building a new trail through a gorge, would improve access to state game lands for hunters, as well as hikers.

The Nature Conservancy, was awarded $643,000 to acquire 395 acres along Hollenbach Road and White Haven Road in Penn Lake Park for passive recreation and habitat protection.

Funding for the grants comes primarily from DCNR’s Keystone Fund, which is generated from a portion of the reality transfer tax and the state Growing Greener Program.