Round Hill Park restoration projects celebrated

A ribbon-cutting ceremony was held Wednesday to mark the completion of the Visitor Center’s rain garden and an allée.

Members of the Allegheny County Parks Foundation and Round Hill Park employees gathered Wednesday morning for a sunny and festive fall ribbon cutting for the restoration of the park’s allée and construction of the Visitor Center’s rain garden.

Along with park tours from county rangers and refreshments after the ribbon cutting ceremony, the event featured remarks from several county leaders.

Allegheny County Executive Sara Innamorato said Allegheny County parks receive more than 23 million visits each year and Round Hill Park sees nearly one million visitors annually. The Elizabeth Township park, which is located on 1,101 acres, features an exhibition farm with more than 80 animals that is open every day of the year.

“It’s critically important that we continue to invest our public dollars into our public parks because when we put that public money into these parks, it allows us to leverage foundation dollars,” Innamorato said. “It allows us to leverage private investment so we can truly untap the potential these parks have and really create great, free, accessible spaces for every single person in Allegheny County, and these are wonderful assets for not only the residents, but a great place for people to come around the region and visit.”

Both projects were signifi cant recommendations made in the Ecological Assessment and Action Plan for Round Hill Park, which was conducted by the partnered nonprofit parks foundation to improve, conserve and restore the park. Round Hill is part of nine parks the foundation is trying to improve in Allegheny County.

“We’ve completed seven, we are working on the eighth and we are fundraising for the ninth, and so two of the things that came out of that ecological assessment was one recommendation of this green infrastructure,” said Jaime Filipek, marketing and communications manager for the Allegheny County Parks Foundation.

Restoration of the allée

A French word for a straight path lined with trees and/or shrubs, the iconic allée path in Round Hill Park was lined with maple trees near the Visitor Center until they contracted a deadly disease from a fungus living in the soil known as verticillium wilt back in March.

The disease can infect some woody plants, including maple trees, and there is no remedy. If the trees were left alone, they would have deteriorated or fallen on a park-goer or animal, so the trees were removed as a safety precaution.

“While this project was truly difficult, I will say we had so many staff meetings where once we understood what the disease the trees had, we knew there had to be a change made,” Allegheny County Parks Foundation Executive Director Joey- Linn Ulrich said. “Once this was discovered, you cannot put anything in the soils to fix it. It had to be removed. It was a very difficult deci sion, but we knew it was the right decision to be made.”

The trees were disposed of to avoid spreading the disease, and now, the road will be lined once again with replanted and different tree species which are resistant to verticillium wilt, including linden trees, honey locust, London plane and London crabapple.

“Having a variety of trees our goal is the variety will not allow one or two diseases to take out the entire allée so we are really working with our partners at the county making really good decisions for what needs to be planted here,” Ulrich said. “One day we’ll all come back and it will be that beautiful allée that we all can remember.”

Over the past several years, the county has done over 750 repair and restoration trees at Round Hill in addition to the 38 allée trees, according to Innamorato.

Allegheny County Parks Foundation board member Joe Milcoff, who is vice president of legal at FedEx Ground, discussed the $10,000 in funding FedEx gave to restore the allée. He said the company has invested over $2 million in 50 urban conservation projects around the world.

Milcoff said they approach sustainability in different lenses, including how they can employ their resources and expertise to make a difference in the communities they serve, which includes Round Hill Park.

“At FedEx, we believe in our ability and responsibility to deliver a better future for all by creating a more sustainable, inclusive and connected world,” Milcoff said. “It brings me immense pride that this allée restoration project was enabled by the FedEx cares program and one of our local community engagement grants.

“Service to local communities, including conservation projects like this one, is an essential part of FedEx’s culture,” he added. “On behalf of FedEx and the more than 4,000 team members we have in Pittsburgh, we are excited to see Round Hill’s iconic allée healthy and restored for all to enjoy in many years to come.”

Visitor Center Rain Garden

The Visitor Center’s rain garden is a project designed and constructed to demonstrate how to capture and treat rainwater from the building’s roof and paving.

It is also an educational opportunity for park visitors to learn about stormwater management as signs will be put up in the area, so school groups can check out the area.

“I think it’s really nice,” said Barbara Brewton, who serves as the foundation’s institutional giving and project manager. “When visitors come in, they will have educational signage and interpretive signage for it.”

New piping was installed to direct rainwater from the roof of the building to the rain garden, and it includes erosion control, excavation, piping, engineered soils with an underdrain, natural large sandstone, river rock, native species of plants and leaf mulch.

The foundation received $19,000 from the EQT Foundation, which is a philanthropic extension of EQT Corporation – the nation’s leading natural gas company headquartered in downtown Pittsburgh. They give about $4.5 million annually to projects and nonprofits in the region.

“EQT has volunteered numerous times with the Allegheny county parks foundation, and whether it be through those volunteer engagements or through grant programs like we are here to talk about today, we always know there is going to be a lot of thought and care behind the work that they are doing to help create these environmental spaces for all of us in Allegheny County to enjoy,” EQT Foundation president Ellen Rossi said at the event.

“Having this new rain garden will just add one more space for those visitors to enjoy,” she added. “It’s our hope and dream that some of those kids that come here on field trips may understand just the ecological benefits. Maybe they take that home and they replicate it in their homes with their own families and talk to their families of ways to sustain and capture that rainwater.”

The goal with funding projects, according to Rossi, is for community enrichment, to create a more educated and work ready workforce as well as create and sustain environmental resources.

The garden will manage rainwater from the building’s runoff while also educating visitors about storm water management, according to Ulrich.

“I was actually one of those children who came here for school field trips,” she said. “So learning about the animals but also being able to go to the visitor center and to have additional education is just a wonderful opportunity, so this is such a great companion for what others that come to the park already experience.”