PPL on Monday will begin work on a $2 million recreation complex along the Susquehanna River at Pequea Creek.

Amenities at the Conestoga Township facility will include a 100-foot-long boat ramp, a handicapped-accessible fishing pier and a parking lot for vehicles with boat trailers.

"Wow," said a nearly-speechless Mike Acord, co-owner of Susquehanna Fishing Tackle in Lancaster. "That's going to be an absolute positive, positive, positive thing for everybody."

PPL is in the midst of a $440 million expansion of its Holtwood hydroelectric plant.

When finished this year, the expansion will add 125 megawatts to the plant's present 108-megawatt capacity.

PPL's federal license to operate a hydroelectric plant on the Susquehanna River requires the company to provide recreational opportunities along the river.

"As part of our getting the permits for our Holtwood expansion, we were required to increase the capacity for recreation on the river," said PPL spokesman John Levitski. The new boating/fishing facility "is part of that effort."

For decades, PPL has maintained a boat ramp at the junction of Route 324 and River Hill Road.

The ramp allows boats to be launched onto Pequea Creek.

Boaters then can drive a short distance out the mouth of the creek — passing through a tunnel carrying a railroad line overhead — onto the Susquehanna River.

Last year, PPL overhauled the boat launch by rebuilding the existing ramp, adding a second one beside it and expanding the existing parking area.

It also dredged the mouth of Pequea Creek above and below the ramp, where years of sediment had built up.

The $2 million project scheduled to begin Monday and run through May 15 will involve brand new construction on the Susquehanna River side of the railroad tunnel.

According to Levitski, a road will be built at one corner of the existing parking lot to run through the tunnel, alongside Pequea Creek, to access PPL's riverside land at the mouth of the creek.

There, a new ramp will be built to extend 100 feet out into the river.

"The length is to accommodate low-flow periods," Levitski said.

The ramp will be stabilized with rock pilings called rip rap, so it can withstand the Susquehanna's periodic heavy flows.

"And we'll have an area there for boats to tie off once they're launched," Levitski said.

Having a ramp directly on the Susquehanna River at Pequea Creek is likely to solve a huge problem outside the traditional summer boating season, Acord said.

PPL is required to maintain the water level on the Lake Aldred section of the Susquehanna, north of the Holtwood Dam, at a certain level to allow for recreation during the summer.

Outside that period, the water level can be drawn down to boost electric production.

Often times in the fall and winter months, the water level at PPL's Pequea Creek ramp complex has been too low to launch a boat.

"The past two years, we heard a lot of complaints about that," Acord said. "Guys couldn't get in the water. It was a really sore subject around here."

Next to the ramp will be a 20-foot-wide, concrete pier that will extend 15 feet out into the river.

It will be level with the new road and meet requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

In anticipation of increased traffic at the ramp and pier, PPL plans to build a parking lot there with 16 spaces for vehicles towing trailers and five regular spaces — two of which will be ADA-compliant.

The entire complex will be lighted, Levitski said.

Additionally, PPL will add yet another 12 trailer-sized spaces to its existing parking lot on the east side of the railroad tunnel.

Because of the construction work at the site, PPL's existing boat launch complex will be closed Monday through Friday through May 15 — or until the work is finished.

The launch will be open Saturdays and Sundays during that time.
preilly@lnpnews.com