Volunteers clean up graffiti on 3 Rivers Heritage trail
A dozen volunteers painted over graffiti to clean up about six panels of a large wall Sunday along the Three Rivers Heritage Trail in Pittsburgh’s Hays section where bald eagles fly.
It’s a popular section of trail, part of the Great Allegheny Passage to Cumberland, Maryland, where a nearby bald eagle nest attracts nature watchers and photographers coexisting with cyclists and walkers.
“This graffiti isn’t good for our trail and people from all of the country come through here,” said Roy Bires of Swissvale, a board member and maintenance supervisor for the Steel Valley Trail Council, which is helping with stewardship of the trail.
The Keystone wall, which runs along a small portion of the trail near the Glenwood Bridge, was just cleaned for graffiti in November by volunteers from the Steel Valley Trail Council and the Boy Scouts.
With continuous blue skies and warm temperatures, a crowd congregated late morning, viewing the Hays female bald eagle perched nearby who, according a gaggle of photographers, was taking a break from incubating her two eggs. The male eagle provided a respite for his mate as he pulled nest duty to continuously protect their eggs, which are expected to hatch in March.
Indeed, it was the eagle nation and one of its Facebook pages “Bald Eagles of Hays” that alerted Bires of the recent spate of the graffiti.
“Thanks man,” one cyclist said to the volunteers has they quickly painted over graffiti in about an hour.
“People are upset that this was defaced,” Bires said. “Hopefully painting over the graffiti will discourage anyone else from the painting the wall.”
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