Featured News - Current News - Archived News - News Categories
Article and Photo by Benjamin Joe
The Niagara Wheatfield Central School District is looking to build a bridge and an educational and environmental “node” on Cayuga Creek, as part of the eco-campus project with Buffalo Niagara Waterkeeper and the Tuscarora Environment Program Office.
On Feb. 11, Superintendent Daniel Ljiljanich will ask the Niagara River Greenway’s Host Community Standing Committee for part of the district’s share of funds to create the additions, which include the bridge and raised boardwalk, or node, from which students can take samples from the creek water, as well as give three elementary schools’ playgrounds — West Street, Colonial Village and Errick Road — a much-needed “facelift.”
The entire project will cost $2.6 million, including $204,000 in design and contractual expenses, which are already approved by the Greenway Ecological Committee as per a 2023 decision. The remainder of the required funding is what Ljiljanich will be requesting.
“The playgrounds will be environmentally friendly,” he said. “They will have indigenous plant life put around them, (and) we’re taking out invasive species. The playgrounds are really beat up. We had to do some emergency repairs on some of them. They’re really old.”
The Host Community Standing Committee administers and oversees projects financed by funds set aside for local stakeholders as per the 2007 host community relicensing settlement agreement with the New York Power Authority.
According to Ljiljanich, the funding can only be used for outdoor, educational and environmental projects. For example, he said, some of those funds were made available in 2011 when the district installed a 1.8-mile walking path by Cayuga Creek between the high school and middle school.
“Now we’re asking to utilize our funds to build the educational node and rebuild the playgrounds,” Ljiljanich said. “The Greenway Commission already found us consistent with their mission, so the host community committee will review the financial piece of the project.”
Buffalo Niagara Waterkeeper will focus on ecological restoration and educational goals of the district, and design a “living shoreline” project along Cayuga Creek that will enhance floodplains through nature-based practices and include removing invasive species.
The proposed project goes as far as to bulldoze down invasive species to replant indigenous species, Ljiljanich said.
“We’ve worked with Buffalo Niagara Waterkeeper for a long time,” he said. “They work at our schools, particularly with middle and high school students. They’ve been working on this project for a couple of years and they’ve taken the lead on a portion of the project. They really have the knowledge and the foresight to help lead us with making sure the work we do by Cayuga Creek is the right kind of work for the environment.”
The Tuscarora Environment Program will oversee the cultural aspects of the project. Its organization aims to protect the environment using “traditional holistic knowledge,” as noted in the project’s application to the Greenway Ecological Standing Committee.
As part of working with TEP, Ljiljanich said there will be signage along the bridge and the playgrounds that will inform viewers of the cultural significance around them.
“We’ll have signage that will be QR codes and they will find out this plant is important to our indigenous community,” Ljiljanich said.
The project was not voted on by the district’s residents, but Ljiljanich noted there is no need to seek approval, as the funds do not come out of the school taxes, but are monies already earmarked for certain Greenway projects.
The playground projects are due to be completed by fall of 2025 as per New York State Department of Education approval. The rest of the eco-campus is projected to be completed by the fall of 2026, Ljiljanich said.