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Crews are removing graffiti on Tempe Butte that has caused more than $10,000 in damage to the popular recreation area that contains some 500 petroglyphs and rock art.
The historic butte looming over the city center played a role in Tempe’s founding and was sacred long before that to the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community and other Indigenous communities that once inhabited the area.
“It means a lot more to various types of people and for us it’s significant and to damage it willfully and knowingly is awful,” said Shane Anton, Salt River’s tribal historic preservation officer.
The graffiti included images of hearts and other symbols, letters and even names. Much of the damage was near the top of the butte, where the trail ends, but also in more secluded areas off the hiking path.
The city and tribe are working on education campaigns that remind people to be good stewards of the land and deter future tagging.
“We just want people to respect the area,” Anton said.
More use means more opportunity for problems
The 25-acre park, which includes the butte and surrounding area off Rio Salado Parkway and Mill Avenue, is oneof Tempe’s most popular destinations, favored for its short hiking trail and views of the Valley.
But problems with graffiti have increased with more use, as the city has worked over the last several years to remove some of the man-made structures on the butte and create more open space.
Graffiti has long been a challenge on Tempe Butte, but it was mainly limited to signs and railings, said Craig Hayton, the city’s deputy community services director.
He said the scale and impact of the graffiti on the rocks was much greater this time and city staff has noticed an uptick in recent months as people head outdoors to fend off cabin fever during the ongoing novel coronavirus pandemic.
While city staff removes graffiti from the butte throughout the year, it’s the first time the city has undertaken a remediation effort of this size since 2013, said John Southard, the city’s historic preservation officer.
Layers of graffiti
The removal process has been more difficult than originally expected, Southard said.
Crews found several areas with layers of graffiti and some of the older graffiti underneath has been harder to remove. Different types of paint and even certain colors, such as green, don’t wash off as easily.
Southard was concerned that using harsh chemicals or pressurized water to remove the graffiti could damage the roughly 500 petroglyphs and rock art on the butte or even the butte itself by stripping away the desert varnish that has built up on the rock.
The city hired Logan Simpson Design, an environmental consulting firm, to carry out the job.
Southard said he expects the work to be done by the end of this week.
The butte’s long history
The area around Tempe Butte and what’s now Tempe Town Lake was historically inhabited by the O’odham, Piipaash and other ancestral Sonoran Desert people.
They created hundreds of miles of channels to divert water from the then-free-flowing Salt River to irrigate their crops and provide water to surrounding settlements.
One of those settlements, La Plaza, was at the base of the butte, according to the city.
The butte, known as ‘Oidbad do’ag in O’odham, which loosely translates to dead fields mountain, is considered a sacred place by the Salt River Indian Community and a link to its ancestors who lived in the area hundreds of years ago, Anton said.
Buttes or mountain forms are significant to the O’odham and Piipaash people and are typically used as a place of worship or healing, similar to churches or cathedrals, he said.
For Tempe, the butte also is significant.
The story goes that Charles Trumball Hayden, the founder of Tempe, was on a business trip from Tucson to Prescott when he stopped in the area. Atop Tempe Butte, Hayden looked down on the flowing Salt River and decided to open a business on its banks, Southard said.
LOOKING BACK: Tempe Town Lake has long been an economic hub in the region. Here’s the history
Hayden settled in the area in 1871 and opened a ferry service that took people and supplies across the river, a flour mill at the foot of the butte, and other ventures. A later iteration of the mill still stands today.
The butte has been used in many different ways since then. There was a quarry and a short-lived copper mine. Plans for other developments never materialized, Southard said.
The potential for the butte to become a public space was also recognized early on.
Preserving the butte
The butte was deeded to the city in 1920 and declared a park in 1973.
It was designated as a preserve in 2002 because of its cultural and historical significance and as it’s home to abundant desert fauna and flora. The preserve status protects the butte from development.
Efforts to beautify the butte and return it to its natural form have played out since the 1930s, intensifying in the last five years, Southard said.
In 2016, the city moved overhead powerlines on the southwestern side of the butte that ran up to the peak underground and cut the polls down to stumps. Crews also revegetated the area.
The city repainted two large steel water tanks to better blend into the rock. The city, with input from Salt River officials and the Gila River Indian Community, settled on a color named “chinchilla.”
Last year, contractors removed a 30-foot communications tower, broadcast house and chain link fence that had been at the top of the butte for decades.
“We are making an effort to clean up the butte and ensure that it is used more as a preserve and not put to use for purposes of extraction or economic enterprise,” Southard said.
Regular cleanups and graffiti removal are a large parts of the revitalization effort.
‘We want people to enjoy it without leaving their mark’
The city is working on a campaign to encourage responsible recreation in the preserve, Hayton said.
The idea is that visitors should leave the butte in the same or better condition than they found it so that it can continue being a resource for the community.
“It’s such a jewel to have these desert preserves in the middle of an urban area so we want people to enjoy it without leaving their mark,” Hayton said.
Staff plans to add signs along the trail that remind people to stay on the path and clean up after themselves, and that highlight the butte’s historic and cultural significance, he said.
Visitors can report graffiti or other damage to the city by calling 480-350-4311 or on the Tempe 311 mobile app, which will help the city address issues more quickly.
The preserve status offers the city additional enforcement tools, too. Defacing, damaging or inscribing messages in the butte is a misdemeanor offense punishable by up to six months in jail and a $2,500 fine, although catching people in the act can be difficult.
Anton said the Salt River Indian Community plans to launch its own education campaign on YouTube or other social media sites to teach people about the significance of the butte and to remind people to be good stewards.
“A lot of the cities that surround us were once inhabited by us,” he said. “All throughout the Phoenix valley you’ll see footprints of the O’odham so we want people to have more respect for the natural environment.”
Reach reporter Paulina Pineda at [email protected] or 480-389-9637. Follow her on Twitter: @paulinapineda22.
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