The Upper Brodhead-Paradise Creeks Greenway Plan
Creating a Greenway from Stroud to Skytop
Northeastern Monroe County still has large and beautiful tracts of undeveloped land, providing an important resource for residents and visitors alike. Tourists and seasonal residents continue to be major drivers of the local economy, and protecting these natural resources is key to maintaining that economic edge.
A local group, which grew out of the Regional Open Space committee, has been working for more than a year on "The Upper Brodhead-Paradise Creeks Greenway Plan." The plan is a blueprint for how to achieve long-term conservation of this part of the County. The plan touches on a wide range of related subjects, such as:
- protecting some of the finest water quality in the Commonwealth,
including six Exceptional Value tributaries. This also protects drinking
water quality for downstream residents.
- preserving historic trout fishing water,
- safeguarding the largest concentration of parcels over 100 acres in
the county,
- buffering State Forest and State Gamelands,
- insuring the protection of a nationally recognized scenic drive,
- and creating 25 miles of potential greenway corridors.
Barrett Township, as lead municipality for Barrett, Paradise and Price Townships and Mt. Pocono Borough, applied for and received a grant from the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. This grant, and additional funds from the Monroe County Open Space Initiative, will fund the Plan.
Once implemented, the greenway would extend from the northern boundary of Stroud Township into the "mountain towns," including parts of the upper Brodhead watershed and the Paradise watershed. The Plan will detail the wishes of the community and community priorities relating to creating the greenway, after which each municipality will then be responsible for implementing its portion of the plan.
A public meeting was held on November 19 to provide an update on the planning progress – you can download the visuals from the presentation at here:
Download Greenway Presenation
Importantly, this greenway plan is being done on a watershed scale, covering 110 square miles, rather than as a corridor based on a stream, highway, or arbitrary municipal boundary. All the streams are designated High Quality or Exceptional Value by DEP for protection, making this a significant ecosystem – comparable to resources like the Adirondacks and the Rockies, not in size, but in terms of value.
Next steps are to identify particular land parcels that are important to meet the goals of the plan. Future issues of the BWA Newsletter, Streamlines, will continue to cover this very important process as it unfolds. To be part of the Plan development, contact Pat Dougherty, 595-6001.