The Herald, Sharon, Pa.

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August 14, 2008

Buhl Farm ravine littered with trash; cleanup plan in works, manager says

By Joe Pinchot

SHENANGO VALLEY — As a little girl growing up on Tamplin Street in Sharon, DeAnn McCloskey loved to play in Thornton woods on the property of Buhl Farm Golf Course.

It was a short walk across Thornton Avenue and one of the golf course’s fairways to get to the woods.

She and other kids would climb the ravines, try to dam Dum Dum Creek with rocks, play in the water and watch crabs in the creek. She would collect crayfish and take them home, which became an excuse to go back after supper because her mother invariably would tell her to return them to their natural habitat.

“It was a daily thing when we were kids,” Ms. McCloskey said. “I used to spend the day there.”

The kids treated the area well, she said.

“No one left trash,” Ms. McCloskey said “It was cool to have something that I thought was untouched in town.”

Ms. McCloskey had told her granddaughter, Kayla Paoletta, 11, of Sharon, stories of her days in the woods, and Kayla was smitten. A budding environmentalist, Kayla wanted to see where her grandmother had played, and Ms. McCloskey, who now lives eight houses away from where she grew up, on Hadley Street, took Kayla there on a September walk. It was the first time in 40 years Ms. McCloskey had been in the woods.

They were disappointed at what they saw.

A dirt road had been built from the golf course back into the woods, and the pristine woodland was marred by scattered garbage, some in garbage bags, a broken plastic slide, rusting sign posts, a sign from the park’s fitness trail, a sign from the decades-removed skating rink, apparent construction debris and a plastic drawer.

“I was just wowed,” said Kayla, the daughter of Kristy and Raymond McIntyre and Jason Paoletta. “There are better places you can put them,” she said of the stuff she found.

Kayla, who has studied the environment and recycling in school and attended a week-long program this summer at Penn State Shenango that dealt with alternative energy sources, said some of the items could be recycled, others made available to people who could use them, and others, at least, hauled away.

Kayla’s concern is the effect the debris has on plant life and the deer who hang out in the woods during the day. While Kayla was walking in the woods Monday, she unintentionally scared away two fawns who were in a thicket.

“Everybody is appalled (because) we have deer,” Ms. McCloskey said. “Look where they’re living and what they are doing to it.”

Park General Manager Pat O’Mahony said park officials are concerned about the environment and have been taking steps to clean up the area.

“We’re trying to remove as much as we can,” he said.

The park has no timetable for removal.

“We’re working at it,” he said.

O’Mahony noted that the park has a stewardship plan to improve the health of existing trees, promote the growth of new trees and other forms of vegetation, make the area more friendly to animals and birds, deter forest fires and make the forest more attractive.

“We are in the process of trying to make that more environmentally friendly,” O’Mahony said.

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