PA Environment Digest

A grand opening ceremony is planned for December 14 at 11:00 a.m. to officially open the first segment of the Jordan Creek Greenway & Trail.

The 1.27-mile segment is within Lehigh County’s Jordan Creek Parkway and is the first part of a proposed 53.3-mile active greenway that will connect the City of Allentown to the Appalachian Trail along the Jordan Creek.

This section was made possible by a partnership consisting of the County of Lehigh, Harry C. Trexler Trust, Whitehall Township and Wildlands Conservancy.

The event will be held just upstream from the Mickley Road Bridge and behind the Helfrich Spring Apartments, in Whitehall Township. The event is open to the public and will include presentations by Lehigh County Executive Don Cunningham, Whitehall Mayor Ed Hozza, Wildlands Conservancy President Christopher M. Kocher, and other local dignitaries.

"Lehigh County has committed one million dollars spread over three years to the Jordan Creek Greenway project," said Lehigh County Executive Don Cunningham. "With the completion of this first section of the trail, this project can now move toward the eventual completion of this natural link between Allentown, the Trexler Nature Preserve and points beyond. We are pleased to have been able to complete this first section of trail this year and we look forward to begin work on the next section next year."

Lehigh County has committed $1-million towards the development of the Jordan Creek Greenway and Trail for the past three years, and galvanized its promise by making sure public trail was available in 2011.

The 1.27-mile section from Mickley Road to Lehnert Road includes about 2,600-feet of blacktop from Mickley Road upstream and a brand new layer of crushed limestone for the remaining 4,100 feet of new trail. Whitehall Township supplied the labor to construct the trail and Wildlands Conservancy, the lead organization for implementation of the Jordan Creek Greenway and Trail, paid for the materials courtesy of a grant it received from the Harry C. Trexler Trust. The trail can be accessed from Mickley Road or from Lehnert Road, both in Whitehall.

The Jordan Creek Greenway and Trail is a project designed to develop a continuous greenway corridor to connect existing protected open spaces while providing recreational and environmental benefits to the community.

The headwaters of the Jordan Creek begin from a series of tributaries on the slopes of the Blue Mountain in Heidelberg Township, Lehigh County and flow 31.3 miles to the Lehigh River in Allentown. The 82.3-square-mile Jordan Creek watershed is located within ten municipalities, and the proposed trail will traverse eight municipalities.

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