Pennsylvania Outdoor Corps workers Nik Simione, left, and Nathan Little work on reinforcing a retention wall along a trail at Jennings Environmental Education Center on Tuesday. Members of the trail crew have been at the park for the last five weeks working on erosion management projects along the Big Run creek running through the park. Seb Foltz/Butler Eagle

A crew from the Pennsylvania Outdoor Corps is reinforcing a retention wall near one of Jennings Environmental Education Center’s entrances to the North Country Trail, one of the longest trails in the country at around 4,800 miles.

Wil Taylor, Jennings park manager, said that section of the trail, which also is known as the Black Cherry Trail, is prone to storm damage and erosion. If the park doesn’t maintain it, the section could be damaged or even lost to erosion.

“The area we are working on is kind of like a slip,” Taylor said. “We had a big washout there a few years ago; what we are trying to do is finish repairs of the washout.”

Taylor said most of the trail paths at Jennings are in places that do not catch a lot of water and are less likely to be affected by erosion. The park mitigates affected sections when necessary.

But maintaining the the Black Cherry Trail is important also because of its length and because some hikers cross through the park when traversing it from other states.

The crew working on the project is from the Outdoor Corps, a collaborative between the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources and the Department of Labor, Taylor said. The DCNR and state parks provide projects, and the Department of Labor recruits workers, who range in age from teenagers to adults, to complete those projects.

“It's a win-win for everyone,” Taylor said. “We have kids getting real-world experience, and we have parks getting fixed up.”

Nik Simione is a project leader for the Outdoor Corps, and said a small crew has been working at Jennings four days a week since early March. They should be done by Thursday, but Simione said the section the crew has been working on will blend seamlessly with the structures already in the park.

“We are covering up and reinforcing a wooden structure there because the park wanted to have a natural look,” Simione said. “We had to dig out some of the earth and put in bastions to make a nice, solid base.”

Taylor said he has been happy with the work of the Outdoor Corps since the program began approximately five years ago.

Simione said his unit is based in Meadville, but his crew will work on several more projects around the Butler County region during the summer.

“We do anything from facilities maintenance to habitat improvements and invasive species control,” Simione said. “We are going down to Moraine later in the year.”