Park to be built by river

Yesterday marked a watershed moment for the future of Pittsburgh’s environmental and… Yesterday marked a watershed moment for the future of Pittsburgh’s environmental and business community. Shortly after noon, a local development group shoved off from the Gateway Clipper landing at Station Square aboard a riverboat to showcase their plan for a public waterfront park to honored guest Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Although his prominence partly stems from his membership in a prestigious political family, Kennedy is a celebrated environmental lawyer and has achieved a national platform in his own right, backing the New York ecological group Riverkeepers in their struggle to protect the Hudson River.

Riverlife Task Force, an environmental advocacy group formed in 2000 to press for the redevelopment of Pittsburgh’s riverfronts, sponsored the event in conjunction with river-based educational organization Riverquest, who provided the riverboat.

Lisa Schroeder, the executive director of Riverlife, conducted, from the top deck of the Keystone Belle riverboat, the tour of sites that will become Three Rivers Park.

The future park will consist of a series of interconnected parks and trails along the riverfront, extending from the Hot Metal Bridge on the Monongahela to the West End Bridge on the Ohio and up to the 31st St. Bridge on the Allegheny. The park system is also supposed to resuscitate Pittsburgh’s economy by connecting recreational areas with places of business.

“The whole idea that the environment and the economy are wholly opposed is an out-moded notion,” Riverlife’s communications associate Greg Heller-LaBelle said.

First, the Belle sailed up the Monongahela River where Schroeder showed Kennedy and some of Riverlife’s partners and board members the future site of a park on the riverfront of the South Side neighborhood. At the present time, the dilapidated remains of the Jones and Lochner Steel Mill, and especially its enormous retaining wall, have stopped developers from using the space.

RTF has a multi-million dollar plan in the works to remove the retaining wall in order to create a park area and a hotel complex.

Shroeder said that when the pedestrian section of the Hot Metal Bridge is completed, a $6.5 million project, people will be able to cross from the riverfront park at the South Side to another 200-acre site of riverfront property on the north side of the Monongahela. The property will require extensive brownfield reclamation before it can be used as a public park, Schroeder said.

The Belle then turned and backtracked up the river where Schroeder unveiled the Riverlife’s many other projects.

Point State Park is currently going through a facelift partially sponsored by Riverlife. Phase one involves the redevelopment of the city-side of the park. Phase two will involve the rehabilitation of the park’s North and South woodlands on the water-side of the park. Another project is the West End pedestrian bridge, which will connect the West End neighborhood to the North Side across the Ohio. Berkeley, Calif.-based design firm Endres Ware won the design competition for the bridge contract.

Kennedy talked to tour members about the importance of holding government accountable for allowing businesses to break environmental laws and pollute Pittsburgh’s waterways.

“They’re [careless businesses and beaurocracies] stealing something, and that is the purity of the water. It’s just like stealing from a bank, it’s no different,” Kennedy said. “You have to sue the EPA to do their job.”

Kennedy explained that many times environmental groups blame sewer treatment plants for pollution. But the real problem is impervious surfaces, such as pavement, that provide pathways for pollutants to reach the waterways.

Kennedy encouraged Riverlife to threaten municipalities with letters of intent to sue if they were not following the EPA’s laws.

“A lot of people don’t have enough money to go to Florida, Yosemite or Yellowstone,