Here is the update and location of the ramps
Updated: July 19, 2013 8:22 AM
Rock ramp will guide fish over Crooked Creek barrier By VALERIE MYERS, Erie Times-News
valerie.myers@timesnews.com GIRARD -- Steelhead might be able to migrate farther up Crooked Creek this fall.
Girard Township is accepting bids for construction of rock ramps in the creek, at a waterfall that blocks fish swimming upstream. The ramps, actually a series of five rock steps, will conduct fish over the barrier.
That's good news for fishermen.
"It's going to open up better fishing along the stream," Girard Township Supervisor Bill Felege said.
Rock will be placed to create a series of pools and more shallow riffles, said Ken Anderson, a fisheries biologist with the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission. Anderson has been advising the township on rock ramp construction.
"Fish will be able swim from one to the next," Anderson said.
The ramps will be built at the downstream end of a culvert under Springfield Road, where the waterfall was created by erosion, Anderson said.
"Right now, the fish can't ascend past the waterfall. It's too big a jump," he said.
Steelhead and golden redhorse are the fish most likely to use the rock ramps, Anderson said. Steelhead, a popular, fierce-fighting trout that has spawned its own tourist attraction, have been heavily stocked in Lake Erie and its tributaries since the 1970s. The fish migrate upstream each fall and winter to spawn. Golden redhorse, a kind of native sucker, migrate upstream in the spring.
Construction of the rock ramps is funded by a $125,000 grant from Sustain Our Great Lakes, a public-private partnership including the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration, and private industry. Girard Township will provide in-kind services for the project.
"It's going to be quite the thing," Felege said.
Ramp construction could be completed this fall, but there are strict state-imposed time limits on construction in Lake Erie tributaries because of the fall steelhead run. Construction can't continue beyond Sept. 1 unless the township requests and the Fish and Boat Commission grants a special exception, Anderson said.
Township officials plan to award the construction contract on Aug. 13.
"Right now, we have to deal with the realities of that window," Anderson said. "My belief is that the project could be completed in three weeks if they get a good bid and the contractor is able to work aggressively -- and if there's not bad weather. But my gut feeling is that the project will probably be delayed until next summer."
If construction is delayed until 2014, the township would need to request an extension on Sustain Our Great Lakes funding.
Felege said he is optimistic the project can be completed by fall. "It should be done this summer," he said.
The Sustain Our Great Lakes grant will also pay for work in another stream in Girard Township, an unnamed tributary where the Culbertson Road culvert is failing. The work will reduce sediment and nutrients in the water.
VALERIE MYERS can be reached at 878-1913 or by e-mail. Follow her on Twitter at
twitter.com/ETNmyers.