Delaware Canal 21 grant-funded projects to be finshed by end of year

Work has begun on seven grant-funded improvement projects along the entire 60-mile length of the Delaware Canal State Park, according to Delaware Canal 21.

The projects are funded by grants totaling $350,000 from The William Penn Foundation and the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, and are being carried out in cooperation with the Delaware & Lehigh National Heritage Corridor.

They include (from South to North):

– Bristol Borough: Collaborate with the borough and other local partners to improve public access to the canal at its southern terminus.

– Morrisville and Yardley: Collaborate with both boroughs to conduct hydraulic analyses and identify measures to mitigate or eliminate canal-related flooding in these two flood-prone communities.

– Easton: Collaborate with the city to evaluate various options to provide safe and accessible pedestrian and bicycle access from downtown Easton to the head of the Delaware Canal, including a potential new ped-bike bridge over the Lehigh River.

– Leak Mitigation (entire canal): Collaborate with DCNR to research world-wide how other canals solve sink holes and other leaks that threaten waterway structural integrity, including predicting, testing monitoring and materials/procedures technologies for sustainable remedies to water losses.

– Water Quality (entire canal): Collaborate with experienced watershed organizations across the region to develop a water quality monitoring program for the Delaware Canal.

A professional team led by Simone Collins Landscape Architecture of Norristown is conducting the analyses. The work being started now is expected to be completed by the end of 2019.