Youth attending Mennonite convention here donate manpower to local groups
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Katrina Horner of Colorado tries picking up an automoblie gas tank Tuesday as she and others work to clear debris from Heth's Run in the Morningside section. Katrina is attending the Mennonite Church USA Convention and is one of more than 200 youths helping in the cleanup of the Heth's Run watershed.
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Footing was tricky heading down to a steep ravine from Heth's Field in Morningside Tuesday afternoon. The path was soft from Monday night's rain.
"C'mon, you Colorado kids," someone teased from the top, alluding to just one place from which these 45 youth volunteers had come to Pittsburgh for the Mennonite Church USA Convention.
For the rest of this week, a different group each day will haul more than three tons of debris and heavy waste from the ravine in a human daisy chain. They are among nearly 2,900 teens and young adults at the convention who are donating 10,000 hours of labor to 47 local organizations and agencies.
The Heth's Run adventure is being led by Allegheny Cleanways and its Dumpbusters crew of local volunteers who devote two to three days a week cleaning dumpsites in Allegheny County.
Erin Copeland, senior restoration ecologist for the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy, said the cleanups of this and other dumpsites "all combine to be something more. I want these volunteers to know that they are part of the bigger picture."
PG MAPThe cleanup of Heth's Run is a prelude to the massive, multimillion dollar Heth's Run Ecological and Recreation Restoration Project, for which plans started in 2002. It includes a bridge restoration, a trail system, access to the Allegheny River and a greening of what is now the parking lot of the Pittsburgh Zoo & Aquarium. That lot will be relocated.
"The first piece is the big one, the replacement of the bridge [at Butler Street and the entrance to the zoo]," said David Hance, executive director of the Highland Park Community Development Corp. "That project is tied up in the vagaries of federal transportation funding, but absolutely it will happen. The bridge design is under way. It's a big complicated team but everyone is on board."
Heth's Run -- named for Henry Heth, who captained a Virginia regiment in service at Fort Pitt during the Revolutionary War and built an estate nearby -- lies between Highland Park and Morningside. It was a stream before it was covered over with a culvert more than a century ago. It runs to the Allegheny River largely under the zoo's parking lot.
First Published July 6, 2011 12:00 am
