Recently, I stood on the Ott Street Bridge and watched a mother try to help her two young daughters wrestle through the underbrush at Cedar Park to stream's edge. Although the no-mow zone is too narrow to serve as an effective riparian buffer, it does block view and access to the creek; The worst of both worlds. Whether you support the traditional park system as I do, or think the parks should be in their natural state, all we have now is inconvenience and ticks. Whether you value the view-shed as I do, or favor environmental criterion as Andrew Kleiner, all we have now is mismanagement. Tomorrow evening, Tuesday June 5, I will conduct a meeting* for those concerned with the state of our parks. Although the group was originally started to address the neglected WPA structures, we will expand our mission as a nonpolitical, concerned citizens group, for all park issues. Please join us.*Meeting at the Allentown Library at 7:00p.m. second floor.
I am surprised at you MM,. You know darn well we can do both. Indeed must do both.
ReplyDeleteA lot of people are looking at your blog for positive direction.
People are also looking at Andrew's blog for direction..
Please don't play Paull Carpender with this important issue of our streams, drinking water and parks.
We expect better from you. We are counting on you for intelligent thoughtful leadership, not knee jerk anti - stewardship reactions.
Please.
Good luck with your meeting. God bless you.
Traditionally,many,many years ago,most, not all, most of the parks, had a much wilder look, birds,reptiles,butterflys and the like.
ReplyDeleteI met the General when I was a little boy. He lioved nature and animals. He also loved a nice mediow and a lawn.
All in there proper place.
Thank you for attempting to save the WPA stone works.
Such a treasure.
@8:11, i didn't mean for an "anti-stewardship" position. i support sections of the creek having a real buffer, and other sections having none, instead we have the worst of both worlds. I don't need luck with the meeting, but people attending; hopefully you can make it.
ReplyDeleteMichael, I'm releaved to see your 8:25 post.
ReplyDeleteWe can have the best of both worlds if the park dept can get its priorities corrected.
First, give the parks dept it's full staff back.
Second, third, fourth, etc. LEADERSHIP, LEADERSHIP, LEADERSHIP! At new parks director.
At every level.
Wow, I didn't know that screaming Leadership 3 times would make it automatically appear. Let me try this one "BEETLEJUICE, BEETLEJUICE, BEETEJUICE".
ReplyDeleteYou have better luck conjuring up The Ghost With The Most than any sort of leadership in Allentown Government.
Having lived and traveled in Europe for thirty years, my husband and I have toured many of the worlds great formal gardens.. We both adore the formal look.
ReplyDeleteWe have also observed the European's careful management of stream bank erosion,either through buffer zones,many of them quite lovely,or carefully planned stream bank engineering.
The practice of a lawn mowed to the steam edge without careful attention to erosion,will give us a view, and a park, that I fear will not please anyone.
FRIENDS OF ALLENTOWN'S PARKS web site has a section promoting plans for a dog park on Dixon St. right next to Trout Creek.
ReplyDeleteThese people get a city office and a pay check for this while the park staff is cut back?
Lots of rain, the stream is high, outside the banks. The color of the water is the color of brown mud. That muddy color is in large part from the stream banks being washed away. That muddy water chokes trout,kills aquatic life.Get it?
ReplyDeleteMore roads,parking lots and storm runoff from L.M.Twp.,
more erosion in Allentown.
It's well past the point of what any of us find attractive.
Allentown's creeks and streams are in big,big trouble ladies and gentlemen.
@11:01, no, i don't get it! actually, the mud comes off the plowed farm fields and into the tributaries, such as the little cedar creek. it is not from the stream banks. weitzel gave you a four foot no mow zone and a lollipop, but the water's still muddy in the parkway. all you accomplished was giving those little girls ticks, trying to see the ducks in the stream with their mommy. if you want to fight development in the suburbs, take yourself to their zoning meetings. don't talk some political park director into symbolically turning allentown's iconic park system half way into state forest land.
ReplyDelete9:59 -
ReplyDeleteFunny, we had beautifully manicured parks - where the grass was mowed - and we could actually see the primary feature of the park (the stream). For that effort, our city received numerous awards and national recognition.
That changed during the current Administration.
9:59
ReplyDeleteFunny, but you don't have a clue about erosion,water quality, or storm water issues.
Allentown's beautiful park system is just NOT what is was when I was a kid growing up in the All-American City.
ReplyDeleteAnyone with an ounce of Institution Memory - and who has the intestinal fortitude to do anything but apologize for worthless bureaucrats busy hiring expensive out-of-town consultants - knows that statement, "the park system is just not what is was" is nothing but absolutely true.
And, no, extensive bike trails are not the answer.
Neither are dog parks.
Sorry.
Plenty of resouces exist. They are misappropriated. Open up the books and let the Taxpaying Public see exactly where all their money is going and for what!
BREAD AND CIRCUS
anon 1:15, i think it's valid to ask if the park system is the proper place for addressing these environmental issues. weitzel thought that they were venues for catalog recreation items, and environmental experiments, to satisfy your element. a better approach, in my opinion, would be to have entire stretches of the creek bed true riparian buffers, and entire stretches with open access. for example, the entire north side of lehigh parkway between the pedestrian bridge and robin hood be a buffer, and the south side remain open. under weitzel, the official system was hypocrisy. the wildlife conservancy got a grant to plant a four foot buffer next to a new paved path; a real joke for everyone but the cyclists.
ReplyDeletemm
ReplyDeletethe little cedar creek is miles away from plowed fields. allmost none along the upper little lehigh either. storm water run off and erosion are the issues. visit the experts out in dorneyville and ask them. check kleiners blog for photos, or take a walk with the guy.
buffers can come in many types, trees,woody shrubs,grasses, fabulous wildflowers and some areas should be mowed to compliment park architecture,yes
michael you too can see how the stream bank is eroaded along the cedar creek and little lehigh.( four foot buffers? that's a joke,right? )
tree roots exposed, some spots on little lehigh trees have tumbled into the stream. the gravel paths have washed into the creek also.
there can be many ways to accommodate the little girls visiting the creek and save the stream banks.
i got a tick on the golf course last week,first it was snake phobia,then swarms of mosquitos, now the tick menace.
holy moley
why not spray the entire park and kill the ticks....and bugs,butterflies,birds and the fish ( they eat bugs ya know? fisherman call them "flies"
holy moley.
We all want those little girls to love the park and someday take their little girls to Allentown's parks.
ReplyDeleteWhose against little girls?
I'm with the people who are saying we can----- must-------do both.
SAVE THE VISTA,SAVE THE STREAMS, SAVE THE PARKS
Yo baby!
@1:49, south whitehall spent the morning removing the dirt from springhouse road, by where the little cedar crosses. the dirt is from the corn field there, and ends up in that little creek. next time it rains hard, go there and see the muddy water pour out the field yourself. the entire north bank of the creek is a farm field west of springhouse road. i appreciate andrew's three years in the parks, but they were there for 80 years before. understand that erosion hasn't yet made schreibers bridge too short, and they built it in 1828. the robin hood bridge was built in the 1930's, and the creek is essentially the same width as it always was, since i played there in 1950.
ReplyDeleteI don't think the buffer crowd liked Weitzel any more than you,MM,
ReplyDeleteAnd I don't hear anyone with a gran of thoughtfulness talking about turning the parks into a state forest, even halfway.
I always resent it when people put words into your mouth, or stretch your arguments out to the absurd Michael.
Please don't you start.
Keep on it MM, Allentown needs your voice .
Play hard. Play fair. It's in your best interest. Ours too.
MOLOVINSKY, IM 90% WITH YOU BRO, BUT THE CREEKS CHANGED SINCE WE WERE KIDS. HELL, IT'S CHANGED THE LAST COUPLE YEARS. BANKS CUT AWAY IN LOTSA PLACES. SILTED UP PLACES.
ReplyDeleteMORE MUDDY, AND HEll, THEY AIN'T FARMIN IN LEHIGH COUNTY LIKE WHEN WE WERE KIDS. AFTER A RAIN THE CREEK STINKS.
THE LITTLE LEHIGH AIN'T NO CLASS A TROUT STREAM ANYMORE, ASK ANY TROUT FISHERMAN. I AIN'T GOT THE ANSWERS, BUT SOMETHING BETTER BE DONE. YOUR RIGHT ON MAN, IT BETTER INVOLVE THE TOWNSHIPS UPSTREAM.
PEACE
B there or b square uncle Harry
ReplyDeleteThere are various indicators, metrics if you will, that measure the water quality and health of a freshwater stream.
ReplyDeleteBy any verifiable, excepted standard, the streams that flow through Allentown on their course to the Lehigh and Deleware Rivers, the Deleware Bay, and finally, the Atlantic Ocean, are in decline, with the Little Lehigh and Jordan creeks in steep decline.
To argue otherwise,against all measurable standards, is to render oneself irrelevant in any serious discussion.
@6:11, i don't know about these measurements. i do know that only I spoke out against the sewer lines linking into the creek. i do know that only i spoke out against don cunningham helping to bring ocean spray and it's discharges to the valley. i do know that i spoke out against digging a well at the headwater that lowers the little lehigh's depth.
ReplyDeleteno sign in or name introduction required for speaking at tomorrow's meeting.
Thank you for speaking out Mr. MOLOVINSKY.
ReplyDeleteMichael, would you please take a close up photograph of the covered bridge and post it.
ReplyDeleteThis irreplaceable Allentown landkark really needs some TLC----ASAP.
Please add this to the list of park issues you so wisely promote.
Thank you.