State parks weigh survey suggestions for future

Nearly a dozen people turned out Wednesday night for a public meeting at Beltzville State Park to hear a summary of the recently released Penn’s Park For All preliminary report.

Though the meeting was to discuss the future of parks on a statewide level, the conversation naturally turned to the Beltzville — specifically capacity study, which remains in progress.

Beltzville State Park manager Alma Holmes said a separate meeting to discuss those results would take place in 2020.

“That study takes into account conversations with local stakeholders as well as those guests who use the state park,” Holmes said.

Several people in attendance Wednesday noted how the lasting impact of large crowds on major holidays like Memorial Day or the Fourth of July leave the park looking like a “bomb went off the next day.” Holmes credited the friends group for their cleanup efforts on those days.

“We have a beautiful park,” Holmes said. “People love it. They’re loving it to death.”

Suggestions ranged from putting up “Carry In, Carry Out” signs, meaning you take out everything you bring in to the park, to increasing littering fines.

“The bottom line is Alma doesn’t have the staff to enforce these rules and regulations,” John Dworsky, member of the Friends of Beltzville State Park, said. “Until she does, we’ll just be treading water. Our group has seen people breaking the rules and you try your best, but you can’t people on every square inch of the park at all times.”

A date has not been set for the capacity study meeting in 2020. Holmes said it would be announced through the media and on Beltzville’s Facebook page.

Penn’s Park report

Penn’s Park For All is the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources Bureau of State Parks’ planning initiative, which will help guide decisions on future projects and improvements at the 121 state parks, including Beltzville.

In 2017, 10,186 people responded to an online survey, while 4,090 filled out paper responses distributed in the parks. During spring and the early summer of 2018, an additional 1,650 surveys were completed by telephone and 1,131 people of varying ages responded to a survey polling Pennsylvanians who identified their ethnicity as Latino, African-American or Asian.

Proposed recommendations were grouped into five categories including improving outdoor recreation opportunities in state parks, expanding overnight accommodations, protecting the parks’ natural and cultural resources, paying for state parks and improving services and facilities.

Examples of the suggestions included in the report are improving accessibility for water-based recreation by developing canoe and kayak launch sites for people with all abilities on all recreational lakes within state parks; renovating campgrounds to enhance their natural character while providing additional privacy, accessibility, safety and sustainability; assess all current park buildings to determine their condition and provide funding to renovate those buildings deemed mission-critical while accelerating demolition of buildings that are costly to maintain and do not have historical significance; develop a night sky management program to conserve the night sky in state parks and enhance night sky viewing across the state; and improve transportation options to broaden park access.

Beltzville improvements

Holmes outlined some of the improvements going on across the park.

Among them, she said, is the addition of fish habitat to the lake and an Americans With Disabilities Act compliant kayak dock.

With an abundance of hyrdilla in the lake, the park has been educating people on how to clean their boats.

“We’ve had a number of Eagle Scout projects including adding boxes to deposit aquatic weeds pulled off the bottom of boats,” Holmes said. “Another scout project added a natural play area behind the environmental interpretive center.”

The Friends of Beltzville State Park group has also been very active including the addition of dog waste collection boxes and a pollinator garden in addition to their various cleanup efforts.

The full report is available at www.dcnr.pa.gov/stateparks/pennsparksforall.