We had a really good comment on our trails and signage blog this morning that raised some questions I thought we should address in a more prominent way than in the comments section. Here are Andrea’s questions and our answers.

Is the WPA Bridge restoration project the reason why a bunch of PDPW workers were out installing a construction trailer next to Anderson Playground in Schenley Park this morning? None of the crew were able to even hazard a guess what the trailer was for, they were just following orders to park it there. Seems a bit early to be installing there for work that isn’t supposed to begin til Spring…?

Yes, the trailer near Anderson Playground is the contractors’ construction trailer for the entirety of the trails restoration project. It was deemed the most suitable and efficient location for the contractors to set up because it’s pretty centrally located to all four parks where the work will take place, and there was no need to tear up or clear anything out to make room for it here. Plus, it’s likely to be there only until around June, and the Anderson Playground is less frequently used in winter than when it’s nice out.

Work is actually set to begin in early December, so you’ll be seeing the contractors and their crews sooner rather than later!

Also – why was the WPA Bridge restoration considered of greater urgency than the re-design/dredging/repair of the Panther Hollow Lake (and perhaps also the destroyed boathouse)? The bridges all seem to be among the most solid pieces of construction that the parks have to offer. Whereas, of course, runoff from the Golf Course still makes huge algae blooms in the pond after every heavy rain, etc. I had also heard somewhere that the Parks Conservancy had an interest in restoring the Panther Hollow Boathouse as part of a larger effort to create another “entrance” and attraction on the south end of Schenley Park – ?

The short answer is that the bridges are considered part of the trail system, so they are included in the scope of the trails project. Our federal funding is for transportation and wayfinding, and the bridges fit nicely into that. Plus, they’re a part of the park’s history that is rapidly deteriorating, so we want to prevent further damage and welcome people back into that section of the park.

The bigger picture is that Panther Hollow Lake is the last piece of the puzzle in a complete restoration of the Panther Hollow Watershed. The bridges and trails are a piece that has to be completed first. The lake is silted to a third of its original depth, partly due to sediment that is flowing from the hillsides and trails because of their poor condition. If we don’t fix these problems first, we would be dredging the lake only to have it refill with sediment all over again. The Parks Conservancy been working for the better part of the last decade along with City crews and volunteers to do things like cross-slope trenching, which places fallen trees in positions that help to stabilize hillsides and slow down erosion.

As Andrea mentioned, another problem with the lake is pollution. The algae blooms are caused not just by the golf course but by everyone living in the watershed (which includes Oakland and Squirrel Hill). (Here’s a great article City Paper wrote on the subject this summer.) Whenever we do things like failing to pick up after our dogs or over-fertilizing soil without testing it to see how much it actually needs, we’re contributing to the problem. Panther Hollow Lake is at the bottom of a deep valley, and it’s the point to which all the water in this watershed flows, so figuring out what all the sources of pollution are–much less how to stop them–is a lengthy task.

Fortunately, Panther Hollow Lake has attracted the attention of the scientific community in Pittsburgh, and the problems are actively being studied. The monitoring committee includes professors, students, and researchers from Carnegie Mellon, Pitt, Duquesne, Chatham, and ALCOSAN, among others. As they continue to watch levels of E.Coli in Panther Hollow Lake to determine the major source of pollutants, we’ll be able to know when those levels have dropped low enough that the lake meets fishable-swimmable standards set by the EPA.

Then the lake can be dredged, the area around it can be restored, and we can finally work on rebuilding the boathouse and turning Panther Hollow Lake into a safe and fun place for recreation.