Monument's safety
concerns Korean War veterans
By Jim
Ritchie
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
A Korean War veterans group worries that
underground tunneling of a rail line will damage the war
memorial along the Allegheny River on the North Shore.
Tunnels for the $435 million
North Shore
Connector will be dug this week under the Equitable Resources
building and near the Korean War Veterans' Memorial, which cost
more than $1 million to build before its 1999 dedication. The
close proximity of the work is a concern to those who built the
memorial.
"I don't know where this thing's coming
through," said Leonard Murgi, 76, of Mt. Lebanon. Murgi heads
the construction committee for the Matthew B. Ridgway Chapter of
the Korean War Veterans of Western Pennsylvania. "It seems
they've forgotten about us."
Port Authority spokesman David Whipkey
says the memorial will not be damaged.
"We do not anticipate affecting the war
memorial between Equitable and the river," he said. "The boring
machine is not going to go under the war memorial."
The memorial's granite walls, monuments
and walkways start about 30 feet from the end of the Equitable
Resources building, which workers plan to drive the
tunnel-boring machine beneath this week. The building was built
so that the boring machine can pass beneath it without hitting
anything.
The machine is cutting a tunnel about 50
feet beneath the surface in that area, and will pass about 30
feet below the basement of the Equitable building.
Murgi says some pieces of the memorial are
braced with pilings that were driven 70 feet into the ground.
He contacted the authority several years
ago and was sent a letter in March 2004 that said the machine
would not damage the parts of the memorial on the surface. It
failed to address the pilings or how close its path would
travel.
Murgi is concerned the machine will come
too close and cause damage to the pilings or possibly exert
enough force outward to damage the memorial above.
"The main concern is this thing is
approaching," he said. "Maybe this thing is well below us. We
have nothing to hang our hat on except this letter from 2004."
Whipkey said he did not know why the
veterans' group was not contacted prior to digging.
The Korean War started June 25, 1950, when
the North Korean army invaded the Republic of South Korea.
President Harry Truman ordered the United States to defend South
Korea three days later. The war ended July 27, 1953, with an
armistice.
Jim Ritchie can be reached at jritchie@tribweb.com
or 412-320-7933.