EVANS CITY — For nature lovers, the Allegheny Aquatic Alliance has some good news: there are now two new public access points to Connoquenessing Creek, in Renfrew and Evans City.

The alliance, led by President Christina Handley, hosted its Launchapalooza event on Saturday, starting at 10:30 a.m. at the new Renfrew access point, 101 W. Main St. From there, more than 70 people floated to the Evans City access point in kayaks and canoes.

Handley said the distance from the Renfrew access to Evans City's new stop, at 252 Ash Stop Road, is about 7 miles, a float that can take between two and a half and four hours.

When the boaters arrived in Evans City, the alliance offered food, entertainment, carnival-style games for children and raffles.

The new access points have natural looking stone steps for people to enter the creek, a project that has been in the works since last August, according to Mike Handley, alliance vice president.

The project was funded through a Western Pennsylvania Conservancy grant, providing $4,000 for each access point, Christina Handley said. But the project took longer than she had anticipated, even with the assistance of Penn and Forward townships.

By providing more access points, the public has more opportunities to interact with nature, she said. Currently, she estimates that there are seven public access points, but the alliance hopes to eventually increase that to 20 or 25, adding two or three each year, Mike Handley said.

“The more that people are in the water, the more they're going to want to preserve it,” Christina Handley said.

The alliance's primary goal is educating people on how much human actions can affect waterways.

“What really inspired (the alliance) is there was a whole riding lawn mower at the Harmony junction that we would have to paddle around (when in the water),” Christina said. “There is definitely a lot of illegal dumping that goes on.”

Christina Handley said that during previous creek cleanups, volunteers had to remove two riding lawn mowers and one push mower. The volunteers also found more than 2,000 tires in a 30-mile stretch of the creek.

Mike Handley said in 2000 Connoquenessing Creek was the second most polluted waterway in North America, second only to the Mississippi River.

But once different stretches of the creek are clean, the alliance hopes to add more public access points, Mike Handley said. He said many access points exist, but they are on private land and that makes Connoquenessing Creek much less accessible to the average person.

Since a love for nature can be fostered at any age, the float was open to all ages, with floaters ranging from 3 to 76 years old.

Logan, 3 years old, went on a canoe trip with his parents, Ben Hobbs and Julie Lineman, from Butler.

Logan is already proficient at canoe-trips, dawning his own bright green life vest and sun hat.

According to Hobbs, the trick to taking a young child is to talk to them during the trip and take frequent breaks.

“There's so much (for them) to look at,” Hobbs said. “He actually loves it.”

In fact, Logan had only positive things to say after the family arrived in Evans City, calling his trip “great!” He said his favorite part was when the family found a crawfish.

And Logan wasn't the only young blood at Launchapalooza. Rose and Jesse Martin brought their daughters, Jessica, 4, and Rebecca, 3, for their first canoe trips.

Although the family's canoe flipped right at the access point in Evans City, at the very end of the trip, the girls had an amazing time.

“They did better than I did,” Rose Martin joked after the launch. “They were just busy looking at everything and playing in the water.”

When a love for water starts young it may never end, if you ask 76-year-old Gale Boocks.

Boocks has been taking canoe trips for 50 to 60 years, he said, and he has always loved being on the water. Boocks, who is from Oil City, even drove 65 miles for the group float.

For him, there's a serenity in being that close with nature: “Just smelling the trees and the flowers when the wind blows upstream,” that's the best part, he said.

The alliance will continue cleaning up the creek and working toward building more access points, which take about $5,000 to build, Christina Handley said. She also hopes to work toward removing obsolete dams from the creek, she said.

Individuals who are interested in the work of the alliance can visit the organization's website,

www.alleghenyaquaticalliance.com, or call 724-371-0416.