Senator Tom Carper says Delaware remains close to getting its first National Park.
State and federal officials will be on hand Monday at the Old New Castle Courthouse for two open houses regarding the proposed park.
Carper says the legislative option for establishing a park is still a possibility and could include the Woodlawn Trust property.
He adds that the second option to create a park from that 11-hundred acre area on the Delaware-Pennsylvania border or other proposed sites around the state is also still on the table.
“The administration has the opportunity to use something called the Antiquities Act to create, not a National Park, but a National Monument, which is part of the National Park system,” said Carper.
Carper notes that Old New Castle and The Green in Dover could also be designated National Monuments, but he’d rather they be part of the park plans established through legislation.
Delaware is the only state without a national park. Carper says legislation that would have put a series of First State sites in the national park system was held up in the last Congress, but the end is in sight as the new Congress convenes.
“What do they say in football? When you’re in the red zone you’re in 20 yards of the goal line. We’re within the, like, five-yard line. We’ll come back and fortunately, we don’t have to kick off and start all over deep in our own territory with this. We’ll start off in the red zone,” said Carper.
The open houses in New Castle are at two and six pm in New Castle Monday.
