By Ryan Smith
LINESVILLE — Area businesspeople, residents and thousands of tourists from around the country aren’t the only ones not happy about a Pennsylvania Bureau of State Parks plan to plug up the decades-old tradition of feeding bread to the fish at Pymatuning Spillway.
A state legislator has also cast her line into the water on the new policy, which is to become effective at the start of 2009.
Feeding bread to the fish at the spillway “has been a family tradition — including with my own — for years,” 17th District Republican state Rep. Michele Brooks said Tuesday. “We visit the spillway every year, and we throw bread.”
Brooks is now planning to host a public meeting on the matter in September. Republican state Sen. Bob Robbins and Fifth District Republican state Rep. John Evans are also expected to attend, and Brooks said the opinions and information she gathers from the public will be turned over to state officials for consideration.
State park officials announced in July that as of Jan. 1 next year, visitors to the spillway — more than 300,000 annually — will no longer be allowed to throw bread or bread products to the thousands of carp below. The problem, officials have said, is that visitors have been tossing a little bit of everything to the fish, including cupcakes, bagels, doughnuts, buns and other items, some of which are not good for fish. Litter is also an issue.
Officials said because most human foods are unhealthy for wildlife, state park regulations prohibit the feeding of all wildlife. However, given the cultural, historical and tourism value of the spillway, officials have agreed to allow the recently-approved fish food to be used there.
That means visitors will still be able to feed the fish, but will have to use specially-developed pellets labeled as “fish food” that will be available for sale at the spillway.
That prospect has drawn the ire of numerous area residents and visitors. Charlotte Kimple, longtime owner of the Driftwood Restaurant in Linesville, has been spreading word to her customers about the bread ban and has gathered numerous signatures and comments — none supporting the plan.
“Stupid,” one person wrote.
Another, “ridiculous.”
Some comments, however, provided more elaboration on the topic: “Now the spillway will be one more thing families can no longer afford to do.”
“This is the drawing card for our area,” Kimple said recently. ‘The tourists come because of this. It seems the people are angry about it because (the bread-feeding tradition) has been here for such a long time — generations. ... (And) if it were harmful to the fish, they would have died years ago.”
Pittsburgh resident Joan Stickney said she bought a seasonal home in Linesville around 20 years ago after spending a lot of time around Pymatuning State Park during her childhood. Now, “I have nieces and nephews who actually save their money to buy bread” when they come to visit the spillway.
Her sister, Dorothy Redding, is also a Pittsburgh resident who makes regular trips to the area. The spillway “is the reason people from Pittsburgh come up here,” she said. “It draws vacationers, and now we’re going to take that away?”
Won’t visitors keep coming anyway?
“I really don’t know,” said Rachel Miller as she, her children and her mother threw slices of bread to thousands of wide-mouthed carp recently. The Cleveland, Ohio mother said she’s made the trip to the spillway twice already this summer.
“We’ll really have to consider it. We come a long way just to come out and see this — it’s fun.”
Ryan Smith can be reached at 724-6370 or by e-mail at rsmith@meadvilletribune.com.
Did you know?
Located just south of Linesville, Pymatuning Spillway is on a two-mile barrier — an old railroad bed, actually — that separates a small portion of lake water from one end of Pymatuning Reservoir, the largest lake in Pennsylvania.
Known nationwide as the place where “ducks walk on the fishes’ backs,” the area has been featured in various publications and is one of the most-visited attractions in Pennsylvania, with roughly 300,000 visitors each year. The spillway, which dates back to the 1930s, was closed for renovations in 2006 and reopened last year after the $2.6 million upgrade was complete.
You can go
State lawmakers representing Crawford County are hosting a public meeting next month to discuss the Pennsylvania Bureau of State Parks’ plan to stop allowing visitors to Pymatuning Spillway to feed bread to the thousands of fish there as of Jan. 1 next year.
The meeting, being planned by 17th District Republican state Rep. Michele Brooks and expected to be attended by Republican state Sen. Bob Robbins and Fifth District Republican state Rep. John Evans, is scheduled for Sept. 8 at 6:30 p.m. at the North Shenango Area Community Center, 2857 State Route 285, Espyville.
