Wantage agrees to help with rail trail project

The Wantage Committee on July 14 unanimously approved to sponsor a Federal Lands Access Program (FLAP) grant for the Papakating Valley Rail Trail to allow the Wallkill River National Wildlife Refuge to apply for funds to refurbish a bridge on the trail.

“For this FLAP grant, they need us in order to apply,” Mayor Ron Bassani said. “They need us to say we’re in. That’s the bottom line.”

Bassani said there is a section of the rail trail that comes into Wantage and the bridge that holds up a portion of the trail connects Wantage to a network of trails that stop just short of the township.

“For whatever reason, the county has decided they no longer want to sponsor these FLAP grants,” Bassani said.

There is no cost to the township to sponsor the grant. Wantage’s only role may be to maintain a section of the trail for possibly a year. After that time, it will be taken over by the Wallkill River National Wildlife Refuge.

Marie Springer, a volunteer with the National Wildlife Refuge, said the rail trail is a state-level project, but because the Wallkill River refuge is federal, it was able to apply for several federal grants.

“They started with this project because Elizabethtown Gas needed to access the railbed in order to maintain their pipelines,” Springer said. “What they did is they went ahead and did some of the bridges themselves, but the one in question is too big for them, and at that point, they have their gas line going underneath the river.”

Springer said to get federal funds to repair the bridge, the Wallkill River Wildlife Refuge needs to partner with a local government. Originally Sussex County signed on but has pulled out.

The bridge, once refurbished, would connect Wantage to the Frankford line of the rail trail, which connects to other areas of the county, heading down toward Newton.