The Northern and Southern tiers are now more connected with the addition of a kayak launch and river access site in Potter County, slated to be dedicated today.

The ceremony, set to take place at 1 p.m. at the southern edge of the Genesee town park, is part of the Genesee River Wilds initiative. The event coincides with the town’s Community Days.

Dr. Allen Kerkeslager, co-founder of Genesee River Wilds Inc., a river conservation and rural economic development initiative, called the project a two-state effort. Genesee River Wilds has a mission to restore and protect the upper Genesee River.

“This represents one more piece of progress in arousing the kind of broad community interest needed to create a system of forested nature parks and wider forested buffers in the floodplains of the Genesee River to create one continuous corridor of restored wilderness and minimally-invasive outdoor recreation areas between Letchworth State Park in N.Y. and the more massive systems of national and state forests and recreation areas on the Pa. side,” said Kerkeslager, who teaches at Saint Joseph’s University.

Work on the site included a new parking lot and access road on northern edge of town park property for the canoe-kayak launch. Students at Alfred State, the State University of New York College of Technology, also pitched into help at Genesee.

The project has been in the works since the spring of 2015 and included Genesee River Wilds, various state and regional officials, and the Genesee Township park board.

“In terms of the political games that need to be played for funding, the strategic leverage of integration with a more demonstrably two-state system should make it easier for everyone working on complementary conservation, recreation, and eco-tourism projects along the Genesee River and nearby areas of Pa. and N.Y. to secure funding,” Kerkeslager said.

Officials drew inspiration for the Genesee River Wilds blueway and multi-use trail system in 2008 via older systems in the commonwealth, such as the Pine Creek Gorge and Pine Creek Trail in Tioga and Lycoming counties and Lehigh Gorge State Park in eastern Pennsylvania, he said.

Kerkeslager said that the “generosity and support from the Pa. side that provided a model for and continued support for the Genesee River Wilds initiative has now come full circle.”

Officials are hoping that land-based trail connectivity follows along those same lines, he said.

“There are already people cycling southward into Pa. via the corridor along the Genesee River from as far away as Toronto, Canada. The continued development of the Empire State Trail in N.Y., which includes the Erie Canalway, will also benefit Pa. because it intersects with our own system in Rochester,” he said. “So as the more comprehensive Genesee-Susquehanna Greenway system becomes more complete, we can expect much more international attraction to northern Pa.”

For more information about the Genesee River Wilds, see http://www.geneseeriverwilds.com/.