Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
9 March 2008
By John Hayes
Big boats need big mooring sites, and the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission has landed a big federal grant that will improve Pittsburgh's status as a destination and layover location for traveling boaters.
The commission will receive $1.35 million through the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Boating Infrastructure Grant (BIG) program to build temporary docks for transient recreational motor boats 26 feet or longer on the Monongahela River near the Birmingham Bridge. The dock will include a 525-foot tie-up for transient boaters and day dockage for up to 17 large, non-trailerable boats.
The mooring site on the South Side will be part of the ongoing South Shore Riverfront Park development, which will link trail systems throughout the city.
The grant is the largest block of BIG funding to have been awarded to the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission.
"It's a very good project for Pennsylvania's boating program that will positively impact tourism and local economic activity in the Pittsburgh area for years," said Doug Austen, executive director of the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission.
BIG grants are authorized by the federal Sportfishing and Boating Partnership Act of 1998 and funded through excise taxes on motorboat fuel. The grants are awarded to help states develop and maintain facilities for large, transient watercraft such as yachts and houseboats.
Recreational boaters passing through the Port of Pittsburgh -- America's second largest inland port -- have free passage through a lock-and-dam system built to aid navigation and limit flooding. From Pittsburgh, boaters can travel 72 miles up the Allegheny River to East Brady; 131 miles up the Monongahela into West Virginia; and 981 miles on the Ohio River to Cairo, Ill., before turning to port on the Mississippi River and cruising another 900 miles to New Orleans.
John Hayes can be reached at jhayes@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1991.