State parks need $1.4B in infrastructure funding
State parks across Pennsylvania, including those within Butler County, face an increasing need for infrastructure and maintenance funding as 1970s-era park structures age over time.
According to a recent DCNR statement, Pennsylvania has a documented need for more than $1.4 billion overall for “infrastructure repairs and improvements” in the state park system. These needs include addressing regular wear-and-tear, dealing with the impact of extreme weather and climate change, and keeping up with an increased demand for outdoor recreation.
The needs of state parks in Butler County are included in that number, according to Department of Conservation and Natural Resources press secretary Wesley Robinson.
“We want to make sure (Pennsylvanians) are able to enjoy the outdoors on public lands, and we want to make sure they're accessible to everyone, and that they're safe to recreate on,” Robinson said. “Those infrastructure needs are really critical that we get those funded.”
While visiting Shikellamy State Park in central Pennsylvania last week, DCNR Secretary Cindy Adams Dunn pointed to increasing COVID-19-era activity in parks as a driver for increased needs.
“More and more people have flocked to the outdoors during the pandemic, and we're seeing many of them return,” Dunn said in a statement. “Investing in the outdoors provides healthy, safe recreational opportunities and boosts a key part of Pennsylvania's economy. It is crucial we do not miss this opportunity to address our infrastructure needs so that the outdoors continue to be a destination for millions of Pennsylvanians and out-of-state visitors.”
Robinson said state parks are often operating with long “to-do” lists of projects that need funding, whether at a minor or significant level. Some less pressing projects are deprioritized.“When there is broken park equipment or the swimming pool isn't working, you have to fix that right away,” Robinson said. “You fix the things that need to be fixed and you end up 'ad hoc-ing' everything else.”He said park visitors don't always recognize the amount of money required to operate a park. Between routine maintenance, major improvements and the labor that goes along with operation, costs add up.“You end up kicking the can down the road too long, and then you can't get from under the burden of the cost,” he said. “Which is why we're saying, let's address this now, so that we can continue to ensure that parks are open and available and free to everyone.”Dustin Drew, manager at Moraine State Park, described a similar “long to-do list” situation in the northern Butler County park.“We constantly have to prioritize and reprioritize based on the funding that we might have available and the necessity of it,” Drew said. “If conditions change and something gets a lot worse, you have to juggle that around. There are lots of improvements that we'd like to make that unfortunately have just not prioritized high enough to fund yet.”Projects that are urgent and require a lot of funding, like upgrades to the wastewater treatment plant, also aren't always the most visible, he said.“The sewage plant isn't somewhere people see,” he said. “It's easy to look at the park and think 'we're not doing anything here,' but we are. It's the bones of the park, those items that the public doesn't always see but are critical to our operation.”Jennings Environmental Education Center park manager Wil Taylor said while Jennings may not have a large dam or wastewater treatment plant in need of imminent intervention, the price tags of other smaller projects add up.“What we do have are some minor culverts and bridges that need to be replaced, and our maintenance facilities (need) to be rehabilitated,” he said. “We have quite the backlog of infrastructure projects in state parks (overall).”
Taylor said some additional funding for projects at Jennings is provided through the Moraine, McConnells Mill, Jennings Commission (3MJC) nonprofit, which works as a “friends of” group to collect donations for the three state parks. Most funding for more daily operations comes from the state.“Here at Jennings, all of our funding comes from the general fund,” he said. “Our operational fund comes from the state budget. The wages that the staff gets paid, our operational money to pay the electric and gas bills, none of that is funded through 3MJC.”Money collected by 3MJC is often used to fund smaller-scale maintenance projects, he said.“The big, needy projects are the ones that get attention from our executive staff. Smaller projects where there may not be a safety issue sometimes get overlooked,” he said. “There are a lot of benefits to having a friends-of group ... advocating for the park.”Taylor mentioned one recent project funded by 3MJC donations: the rehabilitation and resurfacing of an accessible walkway trail in the park, which was supported by the donations of a family member whose now-deceased relative often used the trail.“That donation completely allowed us to rehabilitate our entire accessible trail, and that donation was made through our friends group,” Taylor said.Drew said community support has also helped to fund smaller projects in Moraine. He cited the recent creation of an accessible kayak dock funded by the Leadership Butler County group.“That's something nice that people can use and see and say 'This is a great improvement,'” he said. “That's people stepping up and saying 'This is a good thing for the park.' Since we have to concentrate our funding more on the infrastructure when we can get it, when you see the community stepping up, it shows how much the community cares for this park when they commit at that kind of level.”Moving forward, Drew says those smaller partnerships will become more and more important.“There's always going to be those project needs, and there's always going to be limited funding,” he said. “When we can work with other partners to come together towards a common goal, that's one way we can address some of the other needs on our project list. You have to get creative sometimes.”
To Taylor, Jennings is not yet “in dire straits.”“We don't have any imminent huge infrastructure failures on our horizon, we have a good roof on the building, (and) our plumbing is intact,” he said. “There are always enhancements that can be made, but we do a lot of that through volunteer efforts, and are frugal with our money and where and how we spend it.”But as a whole, Taylor said that infrastructure needs in state parks are beginning to come to a head.“The list is long and large,” he said. “Most of our parks were built or developed in the '70s, and we have this huge influx of visitation because of the events that transpired because of COVID. All the services that people come to expect — being able to flush a toilet, being able to have running water — it's starting to crumble.”Drew also said that Moraine is not yet in crisis, but that maintenance in the park is not something that is easily finished all at once.“There's projects on the list that need done, certainly, but at the same time we've had projects occur recently that have addressed some of these infrastructure needs,” he said. “You're never completely done. We could always use more funding.”
