Kelly's run/Holtwood park closure

[salvelinusfontinalis]

There is one sarce

 

[afishinado]

sarce wrote:
I'll join in the public outcry if an organized effort gets going. Despite rarely being able to visit that area, those streams and trails are some of my favorites in PA.

https://www.facebook.com/SaveKellysRunHike/

http://lancasteronline.com/news/local/rally-set-to-protest-talen-energy-closure-of-holtwood-property/article_6c9e6d5c-0d72-11e6-a074-4f829f8e879f.html

 

[foxtrapper1972]

I would love to see a map of all their holdings in Lanc and York Co.
They own land around Cuffs Run in York I do know.

I never had trouble with the PP& L people. I seem to recall PP&L even having naturalists that worked for them? I met a guy who said he worked for them who was studying birds on a river island. I think when they had the wildflower trail they maintained all of that area better than it is now. And I think they even put on an education event about wild plants down there.

This new company is up to something and it stinks to high heaven.

Brings to mind when Norfolk Southern put up signs along river and tried to deny access and also tore out all the docks along Washington Boro. Signs are still there now but no one pays any attention and locals rebuilt some of the docks. Back a few yrs I went to court against Norfolk Southern and won because they don't actually know what they even own. These days cops don't enforce unless you are blocking gates or something.

On a related note here in this neck of the county...The rail trail improvements with all the millions spent and huge fanfare and ribbon cutting and horn tooting by Waste Management and local townships was in reality one of the worst things for access and the environment. It's all a smoke and mirrors game in the end with companies walking away with money and control and public left scratching their heads.

 

[salmonoid]

foxtrapper1972 wrote:
This new company is up to something and it stinks to high heaven.

Maybe they're up to staying profitable and exiting anything that is non-core to the generation of electricity? Keep enough land open to satisfy your operating agreement and nothing more.. We aren't dealing with an Allentown utility anymore. Brookfield is a multinational conglomerate and Talen is a new entity that has very little of the ethos of PPL.

With a dam, you have a fixed amount of electricity you can generate. Your production is capped by the size of the turbines you have. You can expand production by adding capacity (which Holtwood started in 2010 and completed in 2013). But you still have a fixed amount of generation. You hope to sell your generation capacity of electric on the wholesale market. That's demand based, so with fixed generation capacity, and variable demand, if you are profitable and want to maximize profits, you hope for high demand and you dump liabilities and things that cost you money (or that are perceived liabilities or cost). That includes land and parks that aren't essential to electricity generation.

https://elibrary.ferc.gov/idmws/docket_search.asp

Holtwood - docket P-1881
Safe Harbor - docket P-1025

Exhibit K is the project boundary documents, and I suspect in the case of Holtwood that Brookfield purchased just those lands. The previous generating entities (Holtwood LLC, formerly PPL Holtwood LLC, and Safe Harbor Water Power Corporation) held many additional lands that bordered the actual projects, and they have been divesting themselves of that land over time. This is how the Conservancy obtained much of it's acreage in the lower Susquehanna Valley, how Susquehannock State Park was expanded to include Urey Overlook and part of the Pinnacle, etc. But the entities still hold much more land and I think they are at a point where they don't know what to do with it and some risk manager in an office far away just sees a liability.

Holtwood LLC is the land holding entity that was formerly PPL Holtwood LLC. Lancaster County still lists PPL Holtwood LLC as the owner, while York lists Holtwood LLC. You can browse the Lancaster map to identify parcels, but you have to copy the assessment number over to the assessment site to find the actual owner. Lancaster used to allow you to see all the owner data on the map, but split it out, if my recollection is correct, to protect the location of where police officers live (I guess those intent on harm to cops can't copy and paste??). York provides one-stop browsing.

https://gis.co.lancaster.pa.us/mox6/public.cfm
http://lcapp1.co.lancaster.pa.us/aoweb/

http://gis.york-county.org/yorkclient/default.htm

Not 100% accurate anymore, because some lands have changed hands, but this shows parks and trails. The "SP - Semi-Public" green color are generally the power-generating company lands.

http://lancastercountypa.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=c006bb300ea9493db84dfab123caab24

BIF III Holtwood LLC is the Brookfield entity that now operates Holtwood.
BIF II Safe Harbor Holdings LLC is the Brookfield entity that files tariffs for Safe Harbor and filed a petition with the FCC to pickup the private wireless spectrum owned by Constellation (Exelon) and Safe Harbor Water Power Company, so I presume that is the operating entity of Safe Harbor.

But please do your own homework. Don't trust the fog of social media, including fly fishing forums ;-)

 

[sarce]

Thanks for the info Sal and Afish

 

[raftman]

On a related note here in this neck of the county...The rail trail improvements with all the millions spent and huge fanfare and ribbon cutting and horn tooting by Waste Management and local townships was in reality one of the worst things for access and the environment. It's all a smoke and mirrors game in the end with companies walking away with money and control and public left scratching their heads.

Can you elaborate on how the rail trail improvements are the "worst things for access and the environment"?


Thanks.

 

[foxtrapper1972]

salmonid- thanks for all the research.

raftman- I wish I could show you before and after pics of the trail below Turkey Hill and on down to Shenks Ferry and beyond. It was a beautiful place .Instead of a very wide gravel path with a fence obscuring the view you would see the old RR bed lined with Mountain Mint and other interesting/beneficial plants. In springtime you would see loads of butterflies and moths and puddles where toads layed their eggs. There were trees that almost formed into a canopy creating a shaded tunnel in many places. It was a pleasant place to walk and rarely did you see a soul. And because gfew went there you would also see more birds and other wildlife . You would not see signs telling you what you could not do. Signs saying NO FISHING or STAY ON THE TRAIL etc. or NO HUNTING. Also you would not see the increased traffic and constant parade of dog walkers and noisy water bottle carrying fitness walkers and out of state visitors. Call me old fashioned for wishing I could still carry my rifle or shotgun and hunt that area in the fall with my sons for turkey, deer or squirrels. I lost the ability to access unposted land along the trail that I enjoyed for YEARS and for MILES throughout my whole life. If you consider cutting trees, destroying native plants including spraying of herbicide and all the various paving and fence building a plus for the environment then I guess I will have to disagree.

 

[raftman]

raftman-If you consider cutting trees, destroying native plants including spraying of herbicide and all the various paving and fence building a plus for the environment then I guess I will have to disagree.

Interesting perspective. Living in Marietta and right along the new rail-trail they are putting in/extending/working on from Columbia to Falmouth, I am experiencing both the benefits and setbacks. I go back and forth as to how I feel about it - I love the access it brings to certain areas, the economic benefit it has for a town like this, and the awareness of the river for the general public that access brings; but also loathe that same access for the amount of people it brings and their impact. I also just witness the removal of a beautiful, big healthy sycamore for the sole reason of a larger parking lot. Never realized I could get so upset about one tree. hahahaha. But it was more of a symbol of the whole situation really. Thanks for sharing your experience.

 

[foxtrapper1972]

raftman- Funny thing is that the "trail" was mostly all intact before any paving or improvements took place. It was a more meandering trail where you might have to get your shoes muddy. And it was mostly all open to the public with a LOT less RESTRICTIONS. All those areas had some real unique character. I have become convinced that the very best thing man can do for the environment is just leave it alone. First thing on streams and any where really would be don't cut trees. The fact that we are making a priority of building trails and visitor centers and not updating waste water treatment plants is #censor# backwards. Of course for the trail tourists the water only needs to look pretty...

 

[salvelinusfontinalis]

It has come to the attention of some that both part of the Kelly's run trail and the Conestoga trail were deemed national recreational trails by congress/department of interior.

I believe the closure to be illegal without contacting them and getting them to okay the closure.

https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1955&dat=19761212&id=2WNhAAAAIBAJ&sjid=8KAFAAAAIBAJ&pg=6486%2C494354&hl=en

http://www.americantrails.org/NRTDatabase/trailDetail.php?recordID=700

Don't worry fox, the dept of interior says it's ok to hunt ;-)

 

[HopBack]

Something to note in this article is that ppl owned 5000 acres on both sides of the river that were being managed for conservation or recreation. As I said before that's a whole lot of potential land being lost.

 

[salmonoid]

The operative word is owned. Their total holdings may have originally been 5000 acres but the Lancaster County Conservancy now holds title to at least 2300 acres (out of a total of 3700 acres that was to be transferred) on both the York and Lancaster County sides. LCC may end up "saving" Holtwood Park, but it was also one of the groups that supported FERC's decision to remove some of these lands from project boundaries, since the lower Susquehanna River lands are one of DCNR Conservation Landscapes, and by having them removed from the FERC boundaries, LCC could then acquire them and preserve them. The government forcing Talen to divest themselves of too much generating capacity accelerated the time line for Talen's exit strategy, and while I am sure LCC had these areas on their radar, the time line has clearly jumped on them a bit.

It is a tangled web.

http://lancasteronline.com/news/outdoors-the-big-deal-fact-vs-fiction-in-ppl-land/article_400318f1-9577-50ac-850e-d01244b89333.html

http://www.lancasterconservancy.org/proposed-pipeline/

 

[foxtrapper1972]

Fell asleep trying to read that article. No wonder no one wants to read any environmental news. Was that written to confuse?

Ah the good old days of "tolerated trespassing". Even the LCC has too many rules if you ask me. Everywhere a sign. Now lawyers will be involved and tons of money will change hands. When the power companies originally obtained the land (through whatever means...probably imminent domain) it was worthless. Now huge, highly profitable corporation needs to turn a huge profit ...No surprise. Could they do something for the public? Can they afford to "maintain" the lands? ( By "maintain" I mean leave them alone) Of course but they won't. Welcome to the new America. The benevolent corporations strike again.

 

[salmonoid]

Verbal agreement opens the trailhead and parking area. Seems like there is some movement here. Things could have taken an interesting twist when Talen was sold in June. I was not quite sure what might happen with Riverstone buying out PPL's remaining stake in Talen.

 

[Swattie87]

Yep, heard it on 105.1 this morning. Good news for outdoor recreation fans in the area for sure.