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Auburn Heights Preserve becomes newest state park

The Auburn Heights Preserve in Yorklyn became Delaware’s 17th state park Friday.

The new Auburn Valley State Park totals 366 acres, and includes portions of the former National Vulcanized Fiber facility.

 

Gov. John Carney says he expects the new park to draw both tourists and new residents to Yorklyn.

“If there’s a prettier spot in our whole state, I haven’t been there," he said.

The portion of the park impacted by former industrial uses at the NVF site underwent site remediation – including toxics removal and flood mitigation.

Division of Parks and Recreation Director Ray Bivens says Auburn Valley is the first state park Delaware has added to the system in well over a decade.

“We see this as the start of a trend in state parks nationally," said Bivens. "Used to be when you started a new state park, you went out and bought a big parcel of land and you created a state park. Well there’s not a whole lot of big, undeveloped parcels of land in Delaware, so finding good uses of underused or abused  pieces of property and turning them back into a community resources is a huge trend.”

According to Bivens, mixed-use redevelopment of the other part of the NVF site is planned by private developers.

 

Sophia Schmidt is a Delaware native. She comes to Delaware Public Media from NPR’s Weekend Edition in Washington, DC, where she produced arts, politics, science and culture interviews. She previously wrote about education and environment for The Berkshire Eagle in Pittsfield, MA. She graduated from Williams College, where she studied environmental policy and biology, and covered environmental events and local renewable energy for the college paper.
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