In Spring Creek Canyon, Penn State Ignores Its Obligation
Published in the Harrisburg Patriot News, Sunday, July 22, 2007
by Gary Thornbloom, Chairman of the Moshannon Group of the Sierra Club
The Rendell administration has reportedly decided to transfer 1,800 acres of Rockview penitentiary property along Spring Creek to Penn State University and Benner Township. Penn State is to receive the uplands bordering Spring Creek canyon to construct agricultural research and production operations, while Benner Township gets the canyon portion.
The MoshannonGroup of the Sierra Club has sought to ensure this land is entrusted to an entity whose mission is to conserve land and never sell it for development. We initially supported transferring the land to the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. However, after meeting with it, it was clear it was not interested in taking ownership.
Subsequently, we learned that not only was the Pennsylvania Game Commission interested in the property, it had been trying to purchase it for many years and had offered to pay $1,800 per acre, which was twice the amount that Penn State was offering.
The Game Commission became interested in the land when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service informed it that 950 acres of state game lands adjacent to Toftrees that Penn State was using as a wastewater spray field adversely affected wildlife use of land purchased with federal Pittman-Robertson dollars. As a result, Penn State paid $8.3 million in compensation to the Game Commission, which was then required to obtain replacement land within a 60-mile radius of Toftrees and to manage that land for small game.
The Rockview lands were the perfect replacement site. Ironically, although Penn State’s actions forced the Game Commission to look for land elsewhere, it now appears the university has no intention of helping the Commission find replacement lands.
The Centre County Natural Heritage Inventories identified Spring Creek canyon and surrounding uplands as a biological diversity area. It is an area containing natural features that are important in the support of plants or animals of special concern at either state or federal levels that has exemplary natural communities or exceptional native biodiversity. The canyon also supports a world-class trout fishery.
The December 2006 Western Pennsylvania Conservancy report to Benner Township, paid for by the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, recommended the area be preserved in its natural state and the uplands surrounding the canyon be reforested.
This would protect sensitive resources in the canyon and provide habitat for the full range of aquatic and terrestrial life that should inhabit the canyon and adjacent buffer.
The Department of Conservation and Natural Resources has rejected the reforestation/preservation recommendation, and is funding another plan for the canyon. We are skeptical about this new master planning effort because DCNR has already rejected reforestation as an option, Penn State has already announced plans for buildings and production agriculture on the uplands, and Benner Township said it doesn’t have the funds or ability to manage the canyon.
Although we do not question the township’s commitment to preserve the land, we need to look 50 years into the future. This land lies adjacent to two Interstate 99 interchanges halfway between State College and Bellefonte, in a rapidly urbanizing environment. Would anyone be surprised if 50 years from now that land is sold for development? This is the primary reason the owner must be an entity that has conservation as its primary mission and is, therefore, immune to economic pressure. The Game Commission is the only entity that meets that test.
Penn State has an obligation here. It has adversely affected about 900 acres of gamelands bought with hunters’ dollars from the federal Pittman-Robertson fund. Instead of helping the Game Commission find replacement lands, it has thwarted them.
The State College/Bellefonte community — indeed, the entire conservation and hunter/angler community — has an unprecedented opportunity to set aside 1,800 acres of land for use by all and protect Spring Creek’s world-class trout fishery.
We already know the Game Commission can be good stewards. The Scotia section of Game Lands 176 is heavily used by the public for a wide variety of recreation, including hiking, cross-country skiing, bird watching and hunting. With the Game Commission as land manager, we have an agency that has the funds, expertise and willingness to improve and protect this national treasure, and it can never sell it for development.
There is no one else who can be counted on to protect that land in perpetuity.