The original remains of Fort Pitt are imminently endangered and could disappear from view at any moment. It's not too late to save them.

		Richard Lang is an archaeologist and one of the original excavators of the Music Bastion. Wilfred Rouleau is professor emeritus of mechanical engineering at Carnegie Mellon University and vice president of the Edgewood Historical Society. Michael Nixon is a national historic preservation lawyer and consultant. They can be reached at SaveFortPitt@yahoo.com.

Through an unfortunate series of misconceptions combined with misguided goals for the renovation of Point State Park, some of the leaders of our city, region and state have decided to erase one of the most important above-ground parts of the "Forks of the Ohio National Historic Landmark" in the park.

This endangered treasure of our nation is Fort Pitt's Music Bastion, built 1759-1761, as part of the largest colonial British and early American fortification on the continent. The Music Bastion is the oldest standing architectural display of Pittsburgh's frontier origins, and takes its name from the tradition that it was where buglers made their calls and military bands may have played more than 200 years ago.

What Pittsburgh will be given in exchange is simply more flat lawn and a redundant performance space, dubiously abutting a noisy highway bridge ramp. It means loud music on the business, hotel and residential side of Point Park and an uninspired slab surface outline of the great fort bastion that was. Indeed, it will be the nation's loss as well.

Under the new park plans, this hallowed ground -- where many fought and died -- would be sacrificed to carnival-like arrays of vendors' booths, short-term profits and sundry amusements. What would be lost in exchange would be a moving symbol of part of our oldest history and deepest roots, a major park attraction for both locals and visitors, a long-term inspirational and educational asset and an economic resource that Pittsburgh has only begun to feebly utilize.

Fort Pitt has twice been a battlefield in struggles that helped define American culture and America's future. First, in a failed 1758 attack that incongruously led to Anglo-American victory over opposing French and Native American warriors; then again in the nearly successful 1763 siege of Fort Pitt's military garrison and refugee pioneers during Pontiac's Revolt, when Pitt was one of the few forts not taken.

Ironically, both of those violent events tied to the French and Indian War have recently been part of the focus of the popular and highly acclaimed "Clash of Empires" exhibit at the Senator John Heinz Pittsburgh Regional History Center. What is even more ironic is that the plans to bury the fort walls are afoot and out-to-bid as Pittsburgh is preparing to celebrate its 250th birthday. If those burial plans go forward, the Bastion could be gone as early as this week.

It is the unfortunate contest of the moment over the accessible preservation of this restored ruin that is the focus of the third battle for Fort Pitt, now being waged.

This time, it's without the sound effects of booming cannon, rattling musket fire or Indian war whoops. In fact, the widespread opposition to the plans of forever burying Fort Pitt -- now taking on international proportions -- has been so far effectively controlled and muted by the master planners.

We urge a new and vigorous engagement, which should be taking the more rational form of open meetings directed at public consensus and accurate interpretation of law, to determine whether Pittsburghers celebrate their beginnings in the presence of part of the real fort walls or only a paltry granite outline and the sadly neglected reconstruction of the fort's Flag Bastion.

Pittsburgh has lost far too many of the physical touchstones of its history. This time the loss would be truly tragic and a real stain on our record of historical stewardship. We simply cannot allow it to happen.

The idea of burying the Bastion comes from the Riverlife Task Force master plan for Point State Park renovations and improvements. The intentions of the Riverlife Task Force, the Allegheny Conference on Community Development -- which funded the original $2 million excavation of the Music Bastion in the 1960s -- and the bureaucracies of the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources and the Historical and Museum Commission, appear fundamentally well-meaning within the framework of their perspective and their emphasis on expanding park events.

There are many aspects of the master plan that would mark excellent improvements -- including better on-site historical information. But, interment of the one part of Fort Pitt's walls that remain visible today is just not right.

The claim that the powers-that-be intend to preserve the bastion by burying it is nothing less than an outrageous abuse of preservation protocols. Importantly, their intention is partly based on old, incomplete information that led to their incorrect conclusion that the Music Bastion was just a reproduction of part of the fort, when it is in fact the restoration of an extensively existing 18th-century structure that was archaeologically uncovered in 1964-65.

We respectfully remind the responsible state agencies of their duties as our public trustees under Article I, Section 27 of the Pennsylvania Constitution which declares: "The people have a right to ... the preservation of the natural, scenic, historic and esthetic values of the environment. Pennsylvania's public natural resources are the common property of all the people, including generations yet to come. As trustee of these resources, the commonwealth shall conserve and maintain them for the benefit of all the people."

We call upon that public which most regularly uses Point State Park -- and which has not been given satisfactory voice in planning the future of the park -- to speak out in this time of preservation crisis on both the fate of Fort Pitt's venerable architecture and its historic memorials, and the misguided plan to physically alter the historic site's "city side" to accommodate a major commercializing change in use which stands at the heart of the proposed bastion burial.

We call upon the Riverlife Task Force and their foundation supporters to rethink their plans in light of new and critical information on the Music Bastion restoration, as well as previously stated public concerns chronicled in articles and letters published by this newspaper. We ask our state and federal representatives to intervene on behalf of our irreplaceable heritage.

We ask you, fellow citizens, to visit our Web site -- www.savefortpitt.org -- to join our effort.