Two Clearfield County municipalities are taking steps toward creating whitewater recreation parks. Clearfield and Curwensville borough leaders are looking to local non-profits to fund the engineering studies.
Clearfield borough council voted last week for the Clearfield Revitalization Corporation to take on an engineering study. It would determine if a whitewater rafting park is possible at the West Branch Susquehanna River.
“The borough had determined itself that we didn't have the funds to do something like this," said Clearfield Mayor Mason Strouse.
Strouse said the borough is still working on finalizing an agreement with CRC, but the group will have to raise $255,000 for the study.
“If we get the engineering studies back and it's possible and both municipalities do this, it will be the first of its kind in the state, like this whitewater attraction thing between two municipalities," Strouse said. "It will also open up the river the whole way from Curwensville down to Lock Haven.”
Borough council members at nearby Curwensville are also moving ahead with an engineering study, in hopes of combining whitewater recreation parks. The Curwensville Regional Development Corporation, another private non-profit, will take on that study’s costs.
Strouse said Clearfield’s study could start at the end of this year or early next year. It will take around 18 months to complete, and then the borough will decide whether to move forward with the plan.
Strouse said Clearly Ahead Development, another private nonprofit, will help find funding if the municipalities decide to create whitewater recreation parks.
“Clearly Ahead has kind of been overseeing the whole process between the two municipalities and applying for some major grant dollars at the federal level, recreation dollars and things like that, (to) hopefully make these things happen as long as these engineering studies come back and say that they can have them," Strouse said.
Besides creating recreation opportunity for the area, Strouse said the borough wants to get ahead of a national movement to remove low head dams in case removal becomes mandatory down the line.
"They're not great for aquatic life and river health," Strouse said.
Low head dams, which are in Clearfield and Curwensville, can also pose a public safety hazard, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers.
