Delaware

Sussex gets grant to fund Route 9 trail crossing feasibility study

Published

1 month ago

December 9, 2025

Sussex gets grant to fund Route 9 trail crossing feasibility study

The Delaware Bicycle Council approved a $35,000 grant Dec. 3, to Sussex County to help fund a feasibility study for a Route 9 tunnel crossing near Cool Spring Road to improve safety for cyclists and pedestrians.

Council members present at the meeting voted 12-0 to give 2025 Cycling Infrastructure Innovation grants of $35,000 to Sussex County and $15,000 to Newark.

Sussex County would use its allocation toward a study of a potential tunnel for the Lewes to Georgetown Trail, County Administrator Todd Lawson said Dec. 4.

“This is just for us to study whether the feasibility of putting a tunnel in that location works,” Lawson said. “We view this as a kick-start of an idea we are looking into.”

Sussex County Council will have to approve the balance of the study’s estimated $45,000 cost, he said.

The trail connects to Lewes, and the state is in the process of extending it the rest of the way to Georgetown.

“The biking community and users of the Georgetown to Lewes Trail have contacted Sussex County for an improved crossing at this location,” said John Fiori, the Delaware Department of Transportation bicycle coordinator who assists the council.

Currently, the only crossing of Route 9 for the trail is at the signalized intersection of Route 9/Fisher Road/Hudson Road, which was constructed by DelDOT, Fiori said.

But safety of the crossing is a growing concern as traffic on Route 9 has been increasing, with housing and commercial developments in the area and more planned.

A developer has proposed building 1,922 houses and 450,975 square feet of commercial space between Hudson and Cool Spring roads. Safety of the Route 9 crossing west of Lewes was discussed briefly at a Nov. 2 public hearing on that development project, which is located near the Route 9 trail crossing.

A Route 9 crossing project was championed for a couple of years by Walter Bryan, a bicycle council member who died in April.

Several alternatives for a crossing have been discussed over the years, including a bridge spanning Route 9.

The idea of a bridge was dropped for several reasons, including the angle of the crossing would require a very long span and there are high-voltage power lines running along the highway.

If the feasibility study supports the project, the county would have to convince the state and federal governments to fund and build a tunnel, Lawson said.

Sussex County Land Trust would also be involved in the project, he said. The group owns the Stephen P. Hudson Park near the potential Route 9 crossing site. It includes a trailhead parking lot.

The bicycle council’s five-member working group met with eight applicants as it worked to determine how to divide the $50,000 that is available, Fiori said.

Applications were ranked based on five categories: proximity to other bicycle routes or public facilities such as a community center, post office, library, school or park; creating a link between compatible facilities; eliminating hazards; inclusion in a master plan; and ability to complete the project.

Lawson said the Lewes-to-Georgetown Trail is exceeding all expectations, making an improved crossing an important project. The anticipated completion of the trail will bring many more users, but also increased need for a safe crossing, he said.

“People are going to be very attracted to that,” Lawson said. “It will exceed all expectations.”

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Delaware

MERR responds to dead humpback whale washed up near Bethany Beach

Published

6 hours ago

January 9, 2026

Press Room

MERR responds to dead humpback whale washed up near Bethany Beach

A dead humpback whale washed up near Bethany Beach on Jan. 8, according to the nonprofit Marine Education Research and Rehabilitation Institute.

The juvenile male was first seen Jan. 6, floating at sea about 2 miles off the Indian River Inlet, a MERR Facebook post said. The bloated 30-foot whale ultimately beached near a private community in the early afternoon of Jan. 8, the post said.

MERR is attempting to coordinate with the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control to get equipment to move the whale out of the water and onto the beach to perform a necropsy, the post said. Right now, there isn’t enough information to determine a cause of death.

Delaware saw at least three dead whales last year, in the Indian River Bay, at Delaware Seashore State Park and at Pigeon Point. The first two were humpbacks, while the Pigeon Point whale was a fin whale.

A necropsy on the Delaware Seashore whale found blunt force trauma across its back, indicating it may have been struck by a ship, MERR Director Suzanne Thurman said.

Recently, on Jan. 4, a dead fin whale was found on the bow of a ship at the Gloucester Marine Terminal in New Jersey, which is located in the Port of Philadelphia on the Delaware River.

Shannon Marvel McNaught reports on southern Delaware and beyond. Reach her at smcnaught@gannett.com or on Facebook.

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Delaware

Pa. man accused of stealing more than 100 skeletons from Delco cemetery

Published

18 hours ago

January 8, 2026

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Pa. man accused of stealing more than 100 skeletons from Delco cemetery

A Pennsylvania man is accused of stealing more than 100 skeletons from a cemetery in Delaware County.

Jonathan Gerlach, 34, of Ephrata, Pennsylvania, is charged with abuse of corpse, criminal mischief, burglary and other related offenses, Delaware County District Attorney Tanner Rouse revealed on Thursday, Jan. 8.

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Between November 2025 and Jan. 6, 2026, 26 mausoleums and underground burial sites had been burglarized or desecrated at Mount Moriah Cemetery, which stretches from Yeadon Borough, Pennsylvania, to Philadelphia, investigators said.

As police investigated the thefts, they caught Gerlach desecrating a monument at the cemetery on Tuesday, Jan. 6, according to officials. Gerlach was taken into custody and investigators executed a search warrant at his home in Ephrata.

During the search, investigators recovered 100 human skeletons from Gerlach’s home as well as eight more human remains inside a storage locker, according to Rouse.

“Detectives walked into a horror movie come to life the other night guys,” Rouse said. “This is an unbelievable scene that no one involved – from myself to the detectives to the medical examiners that are now trying to piece together what they are looking at, quite literally – none of them have ever seen anything like this before.”

Rouse said some of the stolen skeletons are hundreds of years old.

“We are trying to figure out exactly what we are looking at,” Rouse said. “We quite simply at this juncture are not able to date and identify all of them.”

Rouse also said some of the skeletons are of infants and children.

“It is truly, in the most literal sense of the word, horrific,” Rouse said. “I grieve for those who are upset by this who are going through it who are trying to figure out if it is in fact their loved one or their child because we found remains that we believe to be months old infants among those that he had collected. Our hearts go out to every family that is impacted by this.”

Sources also told NBC10 the thefts are related to a similar case in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania. Investigators said they are looking at Gerlach’s online community — including his social media groups and Facebook page — to determine if people were buying, selling, or trading the remains.

Gerlach is currently in custody at the Delaware County Prison after failing to post $1 million bail. Online court records don’t list an attorney who could speak on his behalf.

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