The park in Union Township has an interesting history
The park in Union Township has an interesting history
As Rick and Barbara Sutton walked the trail around Union Meadows near the Schuylkill River in Union Township, they wondered why it was raised and what were the unusual concrete structures in the park.
Maybe it was used for a railroad long ago. They weren’t sure.
The circular trail in Union Meadows East gives walkers an eye-level view into trees that grow from the basin below. Because you don’t have to look up into trees, it’s considered a good bird-watching spot, said Jim Yocom, chairman of the township’s parks and recreation board.
The trail is the berm of a former impounding basin, Yocom said.
From 1947 to 1951, engineers dredged millions of tons of coal sediment, called culm, that had choked the Schuylkill River and raised its floodplain. The sediment was trapped in desilting pools, also known as impounding basins. The massive project conducted by the state is considered to be one of the first large scale environmental cleanups in the country.
“They built 19 of these basins,” Yocom said. “Going down (the river) from above Reading to at least as far as Phoenixville.”
The river bottom would be vacuumed into the basin, coal silt would settle and clear water would flow back into the river.
The concrete rectangle structure in the park is the weir that controlled the level of the water in the basin. Its cement doors were raised and lowered into a pipe at the bottom. The walls of the weir were about 20 to 25 feet high.
“That’s how they put the water in the river after the coal had settled out of it,” Yocom said.
Yocom grew up down the road from Union Meadows, also near the river. His family also had a basin on its property. His family refused to sell its land for the basin and instead leased it to the state.
The project was a collaboration of the state and federal government, according to “A River Again: The Story of the Schuylkill River Project” by Chari Towne.
The federal government agreed that once Pennsylvania had removed 50 percent of the coal silt in the 98 miles above Norristown, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers would clean up the rive from Norristown to Fairmount Dam. The project was led by Reading native Frederick Hagman Dechant.
Together the state and federal engineers proposed to removed between 16.5 and 17.25 million cubic yards of coal silt from the river. Roughly 1,500 acres of land was acquired for the Schuylkill River project, according to Towne’s book. The cost topped $1.3 million then.
The impounding basins were created by digging huge bowlshaped structures along the river’s banks. There were 23 impounding basins, according to Towne.
The cost of the official project was $31.8 million at the time.
A place for recreation
The state turned the basin over to township in 1989, according to county property records. Some horseback riders used the berm, but it wasn’t an official trail or park.
“It sat down there for quite a few years,” Yocom said.
It wasn’t until 2009 that work began on the basin’s transformation. The township received about $3 million grant for road improvement, $1 million of which went to make the trails and parking areas of the park. Yocom credited former supervisor John Salanek with obtaining the grant. He credited Supervisor Don Basile with working out a land swap that paved the way for public access to the park.
About that time, the state Fish and Boat Commission approached the township with a matching grant to put a boat ramp to the river.
A few years ago, soil was added to the basin to improve its quality.
Today 20-plus-acre Meadow Park off Route 724 features a 1.6mile walking trail, vernal ponds and river vista trails, youth baseball and multi-use fields, boat ramp, pavilion, playground and natural areas. The township has created several wildflower meadows in the park.
“Through the help of Mike Slater, we just planted a 3-acre wildflower meadow in the west end,” Yocom said.
It was planted in March right before the governor’s coronavirus stay-at-home order.
Union Township also has a Schuylkill River trail head located in the east side of the park. The trail runs throughout the township paralleling Route 724 once it crosses over the Schuylkill River. The Hopewell Big Wood Horse-Shoe Trail runs from the Schuylkill River Trail and ends at Crusher Road.
Also on the south side the trail is the old tow path of a canal.
Yocom said there are plans to create more interior trails inside the basin around the vernal ponds as part of an Eagle Scout project.
“Through the help of Mike Slater, we just planted a 3-acre wildflower meadow in the west end.”
— Jim Yocom, chairman of the township’s parks and recreation board