Major White Rocks Update- We are one step closer!

CONSERVATION ALLIANCE GRANT WILL HELP PROTECT A.T. NEAR WHITE ROCKS IN PENNSYLVANIA

HARPERS FERRY, W.Va. (October 14, 2009)—A just-announced $30,000 grant from The Conservation Alliance is a major step forward for the Appalachian Trail Conservancy (ATC) in its drive to protect from development 1,050 acres along the legendary footpath in south-central Pennsylvania’s White Rocks area.

Located just north of the Maryland state line, White Rocks is part of a 260-square-mile region designated the “South Mountain Conservation Landscape Initiative” by the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR), because of its spectacular views and unbroken habitat of mixed eastern forest and productive agricultural lands.

ATC has been engaged from the beginning in this effort to conserve the natural and cultural resources of the forest while preserving Cumberland County’s quality of life and outdoor-recreation opportunities.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the National Park Service acquired four parcels to protect the Appalachian Trail and the popular White Rocks access trail. Planned development then would have jeopardized the outstanding view from the rocks, the remote visitor experience, and the sensitive ecology of the area.

Today, five additional parcels in the area have been identified as DCNR’s highest priority for acquisition within the South Mountain Conservation Landscape because of the possibility of further development that would adversely affect the values crucial to the concept of a national scenic trail.

Slightly more than 10 percent of the Appalachian National Scenic Trail is located in Pennsylvania. It enters the state at the Delaware Water Gap and swings west and south in an arc that follows the ridges of Blue Mountain to Cumberland Valley and then down South Mountain to the Maryland border.

The quartzite ridge of which White Rocks is a part provides critical winter habitat for several threatened species listed by DCNR as “of state concern” and is crucial to the protection of Cumberland County drinking-water sources as well as the renowned cold-water fishery of Yellow Breeches Creek. Popular with hikers, bird-watchers, and rock climbers, White Rocks marks the northern terminus of the Blue Ridge physiographic province, the southern terminus of which is in Georgia.

Trail neighbors who would be negatively affected by White Rocks development include the Boy Scouts of America’s Camp Tuckahoe, Diakon’s TresslerCare Wilderness Center, and state gamelands 305. The five parcels of private land this project seeks to acquire are interspersed within Monroe and South Middleton townships among the trail lands, Camp Tuckahoe, the gamelands, and the Lutheran wilderness camp.

ATC’s partners in the White Rocks initiative include the Cumberland Valley Appalachian Trail Club (local volunteers who maintain the footpath and facilities), the National Park Service, DCNR’s Bureau of Recreation and Conservation and Bureau of Forestry, the Cumberland County Planning Department, and the Central Pennsylvania Conservancy. This project is among the topics to be discussed the evening of October 26 at a special ATC community forum at the Carlisle Theater.

State visitation statistics are not available, but an estimated 4 million people set foot somewhere along the 2,178-mile, 14-state Appalachian Trail during a year, and Pennsylvania is known for its extraordinarily active hiking population. Most users are not long-distance hikers, but local or in-state residents enjoying the Trail’s woodland surroundings and pastoral views.

The Conservation Alliance is a national organization of a diverse group of outdoor businesses that support grassroots environmental organizations and their efforts to protect wild places where outdoor enthusiasts recreate. Its funds have played a key role in protecting rivers, trails, wildlands, and climbing areas. Since its inception in 1989, The Conservation Alliance has contributed more than $7.9 million to grassroots groups and helped save more than 49 million acres of wildlands, helped block or remove 27 dams, and helped preserve public access to more than 17,000 miles of waterways and several climbing areas. Further information on The Conservation Alliance is available at http://www.conservationalliance.com/.

ATC’s national headquarters is in Harpers Ferry, W.Va., with its mid-Atlantic regional office in Boiling Springs, Pa. ATC is a volunteer-based, nonprofit organization dedicated to the preservation and management of the natural, scenic, historic, and cultural resources associated with the Appalachian Trail, in order to provide primitive outdoor-recreation and educational opportunities for the public. Information about the trail, this private organization, membership in it, volunteer opportunities, and much more can be found at www.appalachiantrail.org.