The water’s fine: Panther lake to be restored

Hidden in the valley between Schenley Park and South Oakland is a landmark many ignore.

Every day, students run the trails in Schenley Park past Panther Hollow Lake, walk the bridge that crosses it or sit at its edge without knowing its history or former glory. Now, the lake has fallen into disrepair. The water depth is barely deep enough to wade in, if someone even wanted to brave the waters almost always covered in algae. 

In its first few years in the early 1900s, the lake was deep enough for a boat. A boathouse sat on the bank offering rentals and there was ice-skating in the winter. 

“The biggest problem with that lake is that it always fills up with sediment,” said Daniel Bain, an assistant professor in the Department of Geology and Planetary Studies. “We can start to work with the things upstream to diminish the rate at which it fills.”

Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy wants to change the state of Panther Hollow Lake and make students see it for more than what it looks like today. Bain, as well as some Pitt students, have partnered with PPC to restore the lake and surrounding area to be the public space it used to be.

Jason Chen, secretary of Pitt’s Ecology Club, said that Pitt students have a stake in the restoration of the watershed and he would encourage them to get involved. 

“The historical and ecological restoration of the lake and its watershed is a project that enhances the value of an asset that not every university student gets to take advantage of, namely Schenley Park and the vibrant neighborhoods that surround it,” Chen, a senior majoring in ecology and evolution, chemistry and classics, said. 

Chen said that the restoration of the watershed is vital to the health of natural areas in and near the park and also for the continued use of those areas in Oakland and Squirrel Hill. He also said it’s hard to believe that the lake once used to be a popular site for recreation. 

“Decades of neglect has reduced it to basically a large, watery mud puddle that’s good for a short walk,” Chen said. “[But] Panther Hollow Lake, even in its current state of deterioration, is something beautiful to behold.”

Panther Hollow Lake’s ecological issues contribute to its aesthetic issues, and, once the ecological issues are fixed, the lake’s looks will follow, according to Erin Copeland, a senior restoration ecologist with the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy.

Edward Bigelow, Pittsburgh’s director of Public Works in the late 19th and early 20th century, created a team to build Panther Hollow Lake between 1907 and 1909 from an existing body of water, according to the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy’s website.

Some of the plans to improve the lake’s aesthetics, Copeland said, are to rebuild the old boathouse and to fix the edge of the lake to make it more natural-looking and easier for people to access.

“There’s a concrete edge now, which is not a natural way that a lake edge should be,” Copeland said. 

The Richard King Mellon Foundation, the Pittsburgh Foundation and the Heinz Endowments provided the funding for the restoration, Copeland said. There is currently no time frame set for when the restoration will be finished, according to Copeland.

“[The restoration] has the potential to make things in the park incrementally better,” Copeland said. “People who take advantage who live in Oakland are going to benefit.”

The PPC has also been working to restore the Panther Hollow watershed, the surrounding area where water drains into the lake. 

One way to improve the lake and watershed ecologically would be routing water through the ground and soil, Bain said, which would slow its rate of movement because it has to move bits and pieces of ground with it. 

The goal of the restoration project, Copeland said, is to attract more people to Pittsburgh. 

“Whenever you have improved park spaces, the value of the land goes up and draws more attention to that area, and it gets more people coming out to it to have dinner or go for a walk,” Copeland said.