Public Lands Month: Event celebrates America’s good idea
Canoeists prepare for a float on the Clarion River at a public access site at Clear Creek State Park in Clarion County, Pennsylvania. The Allegheny National Forest occupies the river’s opposite shoreline. (Photo by Ben Moyer)
Ben Moyer
Ben Moyer
Tom Briar, Friends for Yough Lake (left), and Youghiogheny River Lake natural resource specialist Vincent Klinkner display the 2022 Public Lands Partnership Award from the National Public Lands Alliance. Friends for Yough Lake and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers received the award in recognition of their partnership to enhance public outdoor recreation and natural resource management at Yough Lake.
In America, September is Public Lands Month, a celebration that no other nation can copy or even imitate. Americans are uniquely privileged to enjoy free access to 1.5 billion acres of public land held in trust by the federal, state, or municipal governments.
Sept. 23 is National Public Lands Day, when the celebration climaxes in public land cleanups and improvement projects across the country.
The concept of American public lands got its first big boost in 1872, with establishment of Yellowstone National Park. Later, President Theordore Roosevelt authorized the National Wildlife Refuge System in 1903. Between 1890 and 1920, Congress and presidents Benjamin Harrison, Roosevelt, and Woodrow Wilson pieced together the evolving beginnings of the National Forest System. Pennsylvania’s Allegheny National Forest was authorized in 1923.
Today, major categories of federal public lands include National Parks, National Forests and Grasslands, Fish and Wildlife refuges, and lands (mostly in the West) held by the Bureau of Land Management.
Trout Unlimited, a national conservation organization with 300,000 members across all 50 states (Pennsylvania has the most members) declares American public lands “The Best Idea Ever.”
Public lands provide free access to high quality fishing, hunting, hiking, nature study, river paddling, cycling, and photography in all 50 states.
Visitors to public lands spend billions of dollars in local communities that surround public lands. Proximity to public lands also boosts local property values. The outdoor recreation industry, which relies heavily on public land use and participation, supports 8 million jobs.
Public lands function as a source of clean water for communities across the nation. According to the U.S. Forest Service, national forests alone provide municipal drinking water for 3,400 American communities, serving 66 million citizens.
Threatened wildlife and plants find refuge on public lands that may not be available on privately held acres.
For some Americans, public lands even preserve sacred sites. Utah’s Bears Ears National Monument, for example, protects sites that are religiously significant to five Native American tribes.
Here in the Laurel Highlands region, our federal public land acreage is small, but significant. Five National Park sites here commemorate landmark events in American history. These include Fort Necessity National Battlefield, Farmington; Friendship Hill National Historic Site, New Geneva; Johnstown Flood National Memorial, Johnstown; Allegheny Portage National Historic Site, Gallitzin; and Flight 93 National Memorial, Stoystown.
The U. S. Army Corps of Engineers also manages the shoreline of Youghiogheny River Lake at Confluence. The reservoir there provides public swimming, fishing, and boating, plus protection of downstream communities from floods.
Here in the Laurel Highlands, state lands represent most of our public land base, bringing much the same benefits as federal lands elsewhere.
For outdoor enthusiasts, it’s helpful to understand the different state land categories in the region, their general location, and purpose. Our largest public land entity is the Forbes State Forest, covering 59,000 acres in Fayette, Somerset, and Westmoreland counties. The Forbes Forest lies mostly along the high spine of Laurel Ridge, and on Chestnut Ridge near Wharton Furnace and in the Quebec Hollow Wild Area. Like national forests, state forests are managed for multiple uses including clean water protection, outdoor recreation, wildlife management, and production of forest products, especially high-quality hardwood timber.
Public land jewels of the Laurel Highlands include Ohiopyle State Park (21,000 acres), Laurel Ridge State Park (14,000 acres), Laurel Hill State Park (4,000 acres), Kooser State Park (250 acres) and Keystone State Park (1,200 acres). State parks permit only limited natural resource extraction but offer wide options for public outdoor recreation. Non-powered boating, fishing, hunting, hiking, and camping are popular at state parks in the Laurel Highlands.
State game lands are our most poorly understood category of public state lands. Game lands are owned and managed by the Pennsylvania Game Commission. No public tax money supports these lands’ acquisition or management. The Game Commission acquires and operates these lands through revenues gained by sale of hunting licenses, and from timber sales or royalties from mineral leases. Statewide, the Game Commission manages 1.5 million acres of state game lands, primarily for wildlife habitat and public hunting. But these lands are open and available to everyone, at no cost, for low-density, non-motorized outdoor recreation such as hiking and nature study. State Game lands in our region are centered around Dunbar, Layton, and Confluence, with scattered tracts elsewhere.
Other than designated parking areas, game lands offer few recreational amenities, although some obvious logging roads provide good hiking. These areas are essentially wild places reserved for wildlife and appropriate low-impact recreation.
Excellent “hard copy” maps of state parks and state forests are available at state park offices, visitor centers, and at state forest ranger stations. These maps are also accessible online at www.dcnr.pa.gov.
State game land maps can be viewed on the Game Commission’s site at www.pgc.pa.gov.
September is a great time to be outdoors. Get out and enjoy our public lands heritage this month.
Ben Moyer is a member of the Pennsylvania Outdoor Writers Association and the Outdoor Writers Association of America.