Cal U. team restores Pike Run in California Borough Project creates new park, trail near Monongahela River
Scott Beveridge/Observer-Reporter
Jose Taracido, who is a consultant for PennWest California’s Partners for Fish & Wildlife program, is shown in this 2017 photo at a section of Pike Run he and his team restored in the borough.
A new park alongside a restored section of Pike Run has been created at the Third Street entrance to California Borough.
CALIFORNIA – Pike Run was a shallow, muddy stream spilling into the Monongahela River in California Borough until environmentalists began to restore its eroded streambanks last fall.
The area around the small stream at the Third Street entrance to town also had become overgrown with invasive plants that kept it hidden from view, and it was littered with car tires until California University of Pennsylvania’s Partners for Fish and Wildlife decided to create a new park at the site.
“This used to be mud. Now, we have gravel and sand,” said Jose Taracido, supervisor of the partners program at Cal U. “The bank was constantly falling into the water.”
His team corrected the erosion problem by driving a series of hemlock logs 30 feet long vertically into the ground and then topping them off with horizontal logs that now line the stream’s banks from the Mon-Fayette Expressway to just short of the river. Logs were similarly assembled across the stream in many locations to make small dams and waterfalls that have created healthy environments for aquatic insects and for fish in the river to come upstream to spawn, Taracido said.
The pools, which are clear and four feet or more deep in places, have underground areas for schools of fish to hide from predators or seek shelter from summer heat, he said.
The project was completed with a $300,000 grant from the state Department of Transportation, which needed to find a mitigation project after it damaged Chartiers Creek and several of its unnamed tributaries in South Strabane Township during the reconstruction of Interstate 70 in Washington County, said a spokeswoman for the state Department of Environmental Protection in Pittsburgh.
PennDOT is committed to being a good steward of the environment, said Joe Szczur, its district executive.
“Our staff goes to great lengths, working with DEP, the (federal) Fish and Wildlife Service, and all other resource agencies to ensure that we provide proper mitigations for impacts to the environment resulting from any of our construction projects,” Szczur said.
The Pike Run project also created a trail connecting the borough to the stream to prevent people from walking on the narrow berm of Third Street to get to the area, Taracido said.
Taracido has received state and national recognition for his work to clean up Pike Run and for other stream and wildlife preservation projects. His efforts have fenced off 12 miles of Pike Run upstream from California to keep farm animals from damaging streambanks and leaving waste in the water.
Today, visitors are seeing fish in Pike Run that include trout, walleye, sauger, white bass, smallmouth bass and muskie, as well as minnows.
Cal U. plans to use the stream and its surroundings as an outdoor laboratory for students and professors to monitor how the restoration work will benefit the aquatic life, university spokeswoman Christine Kindl said.
“Community residents certainly will enjoy the area, which our students also use for fishing and other outdoor recreation,” Kindl added.
“By enhancing the park, this collaborative effort has created a welcoming gateway for visitors, including families who are considering California University,” she said.
Meanwhile, one of California’s most popular outdoor events will open this year with a celebration of the project, which also involved a partnership between the borough and university, a Cal U. spokesman said.
The Pike Run Youth Fishing Festival, which attracts hundreds of area families each year, will begin with a dedication of the newly restored Pike Run stream area next to Rotary Park. Cal U. and borough officials will make brief remarks at 7:30 a.m. April 22, before fishing begins at 8 a.m.