Save the Appalachian Trail

I received an email today from David Masur over at Penn Environment asking me to write my state senator to support House Bill 1281, the Pennsylvania Appalachian Trail Act. It seems that the trail in our state is being threatened by expanding development. According to Penn Environment :

One of Pennsylvania’s best known and most cherished historic and natural places is the Commonwealth’s portion of the Appalachian Trail.

The Appalachian Trail includes 229 miles of trails in Pennsylvania alone, and is home to dozens of threatened and endangered species, and may contain the greatest biodiversity of any unit of the National Park System.

Unfortunately, the Pennsylvania portion of the Appalachian Trail is being threatened by encroaching overdevelopment. For example, Reading, PA-based developer Richard Muller, Jr. has been pushing to build a $25 million auto racetrack and road course adjacent to the Appalachian Trail in Smith Gap Township, in the Poconos, since the township was lacking appropriate zoning laws and protection for the Trail. This is just one extreme example of many proposals where overdevelopment and extensive construction projects are encroaching on Pennsylvania’s section of the Appalachian Trail.

We need to preserve Pennsylvania’s portion of the Appalachian Trail from encroaching overdevelopment and other threats. Penn Environment is supporting the Pennsylvania Appalachian Trail Act (HB1281 sponsored by Rep. Bob Freeman of Easton), which will give local townships more ability to protect the Trail from further destructive activities.

To read the full text of the bill, visit The Pennsylvania Legislature website and to make it easy to write your senantors, Penn Environment has an online form to fill out here: write your senator .

For more information on the entire Appalachian Trail, visit The Appalachian Trail Conservancy website.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 19th, 2008 at 4:54 pm and is filed under Outdoors, environment, scenery. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.