Groups work to clean up Panther Hollow

Mary Schoen takes about 15 pounds of equipment when she goes to the lake at Panther Hollow in Oakland. She's not there to hike or walk her dog like other visitors.

She's measuring pollution levels in the lake and streams.

"It sounds tedious, but it's actually kind of fun to be out here early, and see all the wildlife that most people don't know is here," Schoen said.

Schoen, a doctoral candidate at Carnegie Mellon University, is working with the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy to restore Panther Hollow to its former glory.

The overhaul, which has a price tag of about $15 million for the 80-acre park, includes restoring nearby walking trails, improving drainage for the lake and streams, and reducing erosion of the slopes around the basin of the park.

Longer-term plans include making sure the park is accessible to the public, said Roy Lenhardt, conservancy director of development. Some of the work has started, including planting native vegetation on the slopes to slow the erosion, he said.

But the water isn't safe for swimming and boating, CMU researchers say. The levels of fecal coliform contamination often are above the state-required limit, Schoen said.

Jeanne van Briesen, professor of environmental engineering at CMU, is overseeing water-sample collection. She said she was looking for a research project for some of her students when the conservancy asked whether she knew anyone doing work in Panther Hollow.

"They were interested in doing this, and it has great educational value," van Briesen said. The university had just recently launched its water-quality research center -- Water Quality in Urban Environmental Systems, or Water QUEst. "The timing was very fortuitous," she said.

Van Briesen said the biggest challenge is that there are multiple points of potential contamination for the water. The small creek at Phipps Run starts in a pipe that becomes the creek, which then goes back into a pond. There are major run-off problems, as well; rainwater is a major cause of runoff-based contamination, van Briesen said. And sewer overflows are another potential source of pollution.

Another problem, according to the CMU students' research, is that much of the pollution comes from the wildlife that inhabit the lake and the surrounding woods. So the conundrum facing the parks conservancy is whether to make the lake swimmable at the expense of the salamanders, woodpeckers and hawks.

But Lenhardt said the primary goal isn't to create a swimming hole, at least not yet.

"We'd like to see at least the boating and fishing and ice skating be able to come back," he said.

After they've discerned the source of the bacteria in the water, said Susan Rademacher of the parks conservancy, then they can decide how to clean it up. Among other remedies, catch basins could be installed, and plants that act as filters could be put in. Some of the projects could be completed by the conservancy; others might require major interventions, Rademacher said.

"There's a whole menu of possible solutions we can employ once we're able to pinpoint the sources," she said. "We're actively seeking ways to make the water quality better in Panther Hollow."

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The glory days of Panther Hollow

Panther Hollow once was a bustling outdoor spot in Oakland -- nearby Schenley Oval was used as a horse track, and people swam and rode paddle boats on the lake.

"We know it was very popular in the mid 1890s," said Susan Rademacher, curator of the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy. "There was ice skating, canoe rentals and boat racing, and the stone bridges there were all built in the first decade of the 20th century."

But in the 1950s, concrete was installed around the lake, and drainage changes were made to the lake and streams, making it less suitable for swimming and boating, Rademacher said. The boathouse was demolished in 1979 -- a sign that Panther Hollow no longer was popular for recreation, she said.

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Testing the waters -- is it safe?

Two Carnegie Mellon University students, Mary Schoen and Amanda Hughes, have been collecting samples several times a week for the past two springs and summers. They start in the morning, usually around 9, and then take the water back to the lab at CMU for testing.

The state requires that fecal coliform levels be below 200 CFU -- coliform forming units -- per 100 milliliters of water, Schoen said. The students find that much of the time, the water is at or below that level. But whenever there's heavy rain, the levels spike dramatically, getting close to 8,000 per 100 milliliters. That's not the only time they see increases in the bacteria levels, Schoen added.

"If people would pick up after their dogs when they bring them for a walk here, I think that would reduce a lot of the bacteria," she said.