Spring Valley City Council looking to improve Coal Miners Park

The City of Spring Valley would like to clear away a little bit of Mother Nature’s work so that its citizens can enjoy the rest of her efforts in a safe, more comfortable way.

Mayor Melanie Malooley-Thompson asked the Spring Valley City Council on Monday night to consider ways to improve Coal Miners Park and make it more accessible and easier to enjoy, through the city doing all or most of the work itself.

The 23.28-acre park located on the southeast corner of the city has large grassy fields, a camping area, a variety of tree and bush species, a pond good for fishing in summer, a hill good for snow sledding in winter and a pair of shelters good for picnics and gatherings.

Those things have earned it praise on Facebook as a “sensory delight,” a “hidden gem” and a “diamond in the rough.”

However, some areas have become overgrown with natural flora such as cattails, reeds and algae while others retain rain water, making them swampy and difficult to walk across, especially for older people. There are some walking paths, but most of those are overgrown as well.

It’s really beautiful there, but it’s not all easily available to everyone. It’s hard to get down to the water for those wanting to fish or just enjoy it.

—  Mayor Melanie Malooley-Thompson

The pond has been treated for algae once this year, but it returned in short order.

City Superintendent Jeff Norton called the park “a beautiful area” and a “natural waterway” that is “a nothing area right now … but with a lot of potential.”

Thompson would like to unleash that potential.

“It’s really beautiful there,” she said, “but it’s not all easily available to everyone. It’s hard to get down to the water for those wanting to fish or just enjoy it.

“In the short term, what we would like to do is clean it all up so that it’s cleaner, more natural and more accessible, to enhance the parking lot and make it easier for elderly people to come take advantage of the shelters there.

“The long-term plans would be to put in (permanent) restrooms, though we do have port a-potties out there now.”

As the name implies, the park’s name pays homage to the city’s coal mining heritage and is built around a slag pile, which could couple with the wet area to make getting any heavy equipment where it needs to go. Thompson is confident the city can get there.

“We feel we can make a big difference there just internally,” Thompson said. “My hope is to have it cleaned up a little by fall because it would be even more beautiful that time of year.”