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Skip16503 -> Mercyhurst opens creek site for fishing (9/10/2008 7:14:01 PM)
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From the Times News Today
BY ROBB FREDERICK
robb.frederick@timesnews.com [
It just got easier to fish Elk Creek.
Mercyhurst College has agreed to open a 17-acre property in Girard Township. The land, which includes a long cut of Elk Creek, was given to the college in 2002.
The creek is a key spawning run for steelhead fish. And that means business: Steelhead trips bring Erie $9.5 million every year, according to the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission.
The agreement the commission reached with Mercyhurst -- a public easement -- guarantees free access to the water and a 25-foot border zone along the creek's banks.
The paperwork has not been completed, but the college already is allowing fishermen onto the property.
"There is some good water there," said Scott Bollinger, a grant coordinator for the Fish and Boat Commission. "Very good water."
The property is south of Elk Park Road. It has not been developed.
"There's not a thing on it," said Michael Campbell, a biologist at Mercyhurst College.
He uses the property for field trips. Students do botanical studies, stream assessments and research on reptiles and amphibians.
"We often use that as a reference site," Campbell said. "There's a first-order stream there that enters Elk Creek.
"It's in the floodplain, so there are a lot of wetland-type plants," he said. "There are shrubs and ground-cover plants. But there are also some gigantic old trees in there."
There are fishermen, too. The parcel has long been popular with word-of-mouth noodle-rodders.
The college has always allowed that.
The easement formalizes the arrangement. It also links the property with another on the north side of Elk Park Road. That land, which is owned by Girard Township, is the site of an additional fishing easement. That covers another 300 to 400 acres of Elk Creek.
The Fish and Boat Commission buys easements with money raised from the sale of Lake Erie fishing-license stamps. The program, which began in 2005, has secured public rights to six properties, Bollinger said. Negotiations for 10 others are ongoing.
Mercyhurst sold the public rights to its land for $1.
"It really was a no-brainer," Campbell said.
ROBB FREDERICK can be reached at 870-1733 or by e-mail.
http://www.goerie.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2008809100363
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