Rock Creek Park To Get Makeover As National Parks Celebrate 100th Birthday

Image: A pair of hikers walks on a towpath along the C&O Canal, a national park that runs through Georgetown (National Park Service).

Rock Creek Park and the C&O Canal will see improvements as part of a $49 million public-private investment in national parks across the country, the National Park Service (NPS) announced Tuesday.

The investment drive, called the Centennial Challenge, involves 69 projects in 63 national parks. To be eligible for challenge funding, each project must attract at least a 1-to-1 private match to federal funding, the NPS said.

The drive is part of the 100th anniversary celebration of the national park system. Congress has provided $15 million for Centennial Challenge projects, which will be matched by $34 million from more than 90 philanthropic and nonprofit groups, or “park partners,” as the NPS calls them.

In Rock Creek Park, one project involves rehabilitating five acres of land along Rock Creek and the Potomac Parkway, according to an NPS table. The federal government is providing $17,160 for the project, and the Rock Creek Conservancy is providing $88,545.

In a larger project totaling more than $515,000, the Dumbarton Oaks Park Conservancy is supporting an effort to improve stormwater drainage in Rock Creek Park. The conservancy is providing more than $385,000, with the federal government kicking in about $130,000.

One of the largest Centennial Challenge projects is the $8.9 million restoration of an aqueduct in Maryland that’s part of the C&O Canal, or the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal National Historical Park. The Conococheague Aqueduct, up the Potomac River in Williamsport, Md., will be restored to full operation, the Herald-Mail reported.

Once restored, the stone-arch aqueduct will carry boats over a local creek, as it did until the 1920s. The state of Maryland is providing $7.6 million for the project; the federal share is $1.3 million.

Other projects in the District include a $600,000 grant to improve Ford’s Theatre and a $106,000 effort to set up a Wilderness Explorers program for urban youth at national parks in the area, according to the NPS.

“Philanthropic support helps enhance park experiences for visitors and protects park treasures in ways we would not be able to do on our own,” NPS Regional Director Bob Vogel said in an agency statement. “Building and leveraging partnership support is especially critical as we prepare national parks for a second century of service.”