Point State Park Fountain To Flow Again

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) - With some fanfare, the fountain at Point State Park had its "renaissance moment" in June after an 11.6-million dollar 4-year-long facelift.

But on Monday all 800-thousand gallons of water were drained.

"It takes 16-to-18-hours to actually drain all the water out," Park Manager Matthew Greene says.

The reason for the maintenance is to check and re-focus the new fancy lighting - and to get rid of algae that bloomed in the exceptionally hot weather we had.

Park Manager Greene says, "and what you have is a by-product of the dead algae that we need to clean out of there every once in a while."

Aside from pressure washing the basins to get rid of dirt, and suntan oil - there was debris left behind.

"We found a couple of cell phones, earrings, necklaces, coins, everybody throws coins into here," Greene said.

Park Rangers ask that visitors not throw anything in the fountain - or take a dip, it's not a swimming pool.

There are fines for violating park rules from $5-to-300 depending on the magistrate's mood.

After a test run - the city landmark will be in all its glory by Friday morning - ready for those National Football and Major League Baseball cameras.

"The city's gonna be on TV a lot here coming in the future so we want to make sure everything looks really good."

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