Muskingum Valley Park District Renovating Trails

ZANESVILLE, Ohio-The Muskingum Valley Park District is renovating a series of trails near Ohio University Zanesville. 

The project has an indeterminate timeframe but it is well into its first phase. Executive Director Russ Edgington talks about the project. 

“These trails were actually established a number of years ago, and when they were constructed they weren’t constructed with sustainable trail building techniques. The result is, over the years of rain and foot traffic, there’s been a lot of erosion, and it got to the point where we actually could no longer maintain the trails, so we decided that we would work with the appropriate people to establish a new network of sustainable trails.”

Reshaping the trails requires a deft environmental hand. That’s where Ben Appleby and his trail development firm Linear Active firm come in. 

“Phase one is involving removing a whole lot of invasive species, as well as moving and shaping and compacting dirt into a more usable form… I think we have two and a half to three miles of new trails planned, and part of the process too is undoing the old trails, so as we decommission those we’ll be sort of loosening up the surface.”

Edgington and Appleby want it known that discarded materials near the trail are invasive species and should be left alone to be properly disposed of. 

The Park District also announced Tuesday that portions of the Joe’s Run Recreational Trail will be closed beginning Friday, September 25th. 

Contractors will be clearing invasive plants from the trail corridor west of Adams Lane.  Invasive plants are plants that are not native to Zanesville and Muskingum County,  including species such as Ailanthus, honeysuckle, Japanese barberry, Privet and more. 

Trail users are asked to use extreme caution when traveling in the area