On this blog I have been fighting hypocrisy and sacred cows for fourteen years. Nothing in the Lehigh Valley matches the Wildlands Conservancy in misusing power and influence. They have established direct channels with both the Pennsylvania Department Of Environmental Protection and the Fish And Boat Commission. They interact directly with them, and have their will imposed on the municipalities in both Lehigh and Northampton Counties. They have installed friends in positions of decision and power in both counties. They receive direct grants from the state.
In 2013, the director of parks and public works in Bethlehem proclaimed that the WPA dam, directly above the Colonial Industrial Quarter, had "no historic value", and it was demolished. Apparently, the WPA walls, steps and landings also have no value, because the city which prides itself on historic preservation is allowing them to crumble.
Even the signage commemorating the WPA is fading.
pictured above is the former scenic dam
Seems like they don't want to remember what good government made possible !! Like the WPA program projects they have been destroying !!!
ReplyDeleteAs someone who lives in a building in this picture (upper-right-hand corner) and who has observed the changes to the colonial industrial quarter since 2011, I can attest that the creek’s walls are deteriorating and that the trees lining the creek do not appear to be maintained by an arborist.
ReplyDeleteI also note that when the 1820s stone bridge was damaged some years back, the masons who, while repairing it, built a coffer dam. They said that the creek had eroded the earth underneath the walls. At one or two points, they observed that the erosion below was the length of a section of rebar.
The washing away of the earth under the walls means that these human-made structures are likely, section by section, to collapse into the stream bed sooner or later.
Some of the Civilian Works Administration’s structures - the steps or boat launches and the pillar planters, are likely to remain over time. But walls do not last without regular maintenance. Nature is going to reclaim what she owns; we “borrowed” the stream banks for about a century and haven’t continued to reassert our claim through diligent maintenance. Oh well, nature always wins in the end.