The first step in the long journey to clean up the overgrown Ligonier Beach property along Route 30 restarted Friday when volunteers using heavy machinery removed logs, dead trees, heavy brush and debris from the field surrounding the former pool and in the deteriorating pool itself.
That heavy lifting done by the machinery on Friday was a prelude to what is expected to be a group of volunteers who will be picking up trash, rocks and small brush Saturday on the 9-acre property east of Ligonier.
“I want to see it opened up this summer, get some trees planted and make it so people can have picnics” at the site, where tables are situated underneath a pavilion that survived past floods, Ligonier Township Supervisor John Beaufort said.
He was operating an excavator from his company, Beaufort Services Inc. of Ligonier Township, free of charge.
Supervisor Wade Stoner, who had cut down a large dead tree along the banks of Loyalhanna Creek, said they want to remove as much debris as possible so they can mow the lawn.
“It’s ours (Ligonier Township) now. We need to take care of it,” said Stoner, who also was volunteering his time.
“Machines make a world of difference. We did the heavy lifting today,” said Alec Stiffler, a Monona Farm employee.
Stiffler was operating a skid loader with a grapple with metal jaws to grasp trees and a brush hog that quickly devoured tall weeds growing around the pool, which has been closed as a result of a flood in 2018.
About six hours after they started, there was a pile of logs, branches and weeds that was close to 8 feet high and several feet in diameter.
Beaufort said the township intends to have a bonfire at the site at some point.
There were “hundreds of volunteers” who worked to clean up the site about five years ago, but Melissa Eller, president of the Friends of Ligonier Beach, had said the property just fell into disrepair because the former board of supervisors did not want to spend taxpayer dollars on renovating the site.
The township acquired the property in 2019, and a 178-page master plan for the site was developed by Mackin Engineering of Pittsburgh.
The estimated price tag for all six phases is about $15.5 million. It could feature a splash pad, winter ice rink, an ice skating ribbon, fire pits, a walking trail, access for boating on Loyalhanna Creek and a pavilion.
The fate of the 400-foot-long pool area — whether it would be covered with soil or used in some other way — has not yet been determined, Beaufort and Stoner said.
