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Email: "Beach remains closed, likely for 2008 season"
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Another summer recreation season has opened, but Kinzua Beach remains closed.

And the prospects for reopening the beach this year appear slim.

What’s it going to take to reopen the popular beach which the U.S. Forest Service has been unable to operate the past few summers?

“Quite a bit of money,” according to Tony Scardina, Bradford District Ranger on the Allegheny National Forest.

No one knows for sure how much it will take to install a functional waste water treatment system at Kinzua Beach, but Scardina said, “It will be more than $100,000, plenty more.”

But Scardina is optimistic that the beach will reopen eventually.

“I’m really pretty optimistic that some kind of solution will be found, but it’s not going to happen overnight,” said Scardina.

Scardina said the Forest Service, Warren County officials and the new owner of the nearby Kinzua-Wolf Run Marina are working on a partnership to reopen the beach.

The most economical remedy, Scardina said, would be if the new waste water system at Kinzua Beach could be tied in with another malfunctioning system on the opposite end of the Morrison Bridge, the system at Kinzua Point Information Center.

The Forest Service announced earlier this week that the Kinzua Point Information Center will reopen this Saturday, May 24, thanks to a partnership with Warren County commissioners, the Cradle of Forestry, and local visitor and tourism bureaus.

The installation of porta-johns has made the reopening of the information center possible.

Even if the $100,000 or more needed for the waste water system at Kinzua Beach was found immediately, Scardina said it would probably take about a year to reopen the beach.

“Once we get the money, an environmental analysis will be need but the analysis will not be that difficult,” said Scardina. “It always takes some amount of time to do field reviews, but once we get the money, it should reopen within a year.”

Scardina said regular meetings between the partnership are continuing and “we’re working on it pretty heavily with the county and new marina owner.”

 

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