Seneca Valley senior looking to improve boat launch for senior project
FORWARD TWP — For his senior project, Seneca Valley Senior High School student Jeb Keller is proposing improvements to a boat launch along Connoquenessing Creek.
The launch is one of several connected to the creek for the benefit of kayakers and canoe enthusiasts, and is maintained by the Allegheny Aquatic Alliance. The launch could use some improvements, according to township Supervisor Mark Wilson.
“The access to that area down there is difficult,” Wilson said during a supervisors meeting Thursday, Dec. 11. “Not only do you have to park in our parking lot and carry your canoe all the way down a fair distance down there to get access, but going down from the area of the park into the launch area is very steep. It’s not the most comfortable way to get in and out of a creek.”
Wilson said Keller presented his proposal to improve the boat launch because he and his family are canoe and kayak enthusiasts.
The project coincides with the township’s efforts to seek grant funding to improve the nearby Ash Stop Park.
The township posted a survey on its website to seek input from the public on what improvements could be made. Many respondents said that they either didn’t know it was there or just didn’t use it because it was hard to access.
Keller presented ideas for making it easier for boaters to bring their boats into and out of the creek.
“The plan is to hopefully put a driveway and then have it come into a roundabout closer to the launch,” Keller said. “An idea that we got from the survey was a bit of a slide going down along the steps that would help get your boat into the water.”
The launch is officially dubbed the Major Washington Boat Launch — fitting, since the 250th anniversary of the country is less than a year away, and Forward Township has a special tie to the nation’s first president.
The township is the approximate site of where Washington, in December 1753, was nearly shot and killed by a Native American guide while trekking from Pennsylvania to Virginia. A monument to the incident sits near the township municipal building.
