The tunnel under Route 248 where a mural was installed in the fall has been vandalized.

Graffiti has returned under the tunnel where the Bowmanstown Area Residents Connected hung the entire mural.

Kara Scott, president of BARC, said Thursday morning the vandalism won’t be tolerated.

“It’s very disheartening,” Scott said. “We’re going to try to clean it up, and hopefully the entire graffiti will wash off,” Scott said.

Scott said state police have been contacted, and indicated they will try to monitor the tunnel more frequently.

“We’re going to install cameras; we have funding for the cameras,” she said. “Our goal is to make the tunnel safe for people to be comfortable, and not threatened.”

Scott said BARC was thrilled with how the mural turned out.

“We were all proud; this is a struggle we have with the tunnel,” she said. “It’s just a difficult situation.”

However, Scott said that BARC will attempt to fix it.

“We’re going to continue to make it nice,” she said. “We are just going to keep working on it and hope that (they) eventually respect the art.”

Led by artist Carrie Kingsbury, the entire mural was hung in October when Kingsbury went to graffiti coat it.

Kingsbury has been a full-time mural painter since 1999, when she started Promiseland Murals. She has many large commercial, community and residential projects in her portfolio such as the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children in Philadelphia, Julius Silvert’s and Davita’s corporate headquarters, several restaurants, and multiple historical murals in Berwyn, Malvern and Hamburg.

Kingsbury also has volunteered teaching art for a scouting program for girls since 1994.

The hanging of the mural came on the heels of a community paint day that was held Tuesday at Trinity Lutheran Church in Bowmanstown.

Kingsbury painted the mural on parachute material in her studio and brought it to the borough.

The scene is a compilation of local flora and fauna, including endangered species, and is being done in collaboration with the Lehigh Gap Nature Center’s projected mural to create a continuity of art connected by the D&L National Heritage Corridor Trail.

The rare/threatened/endangered species include a bleeding heart (plant); sandwort (plant); spotted turtle; and the Milbert’s tortoiseshell (butterfly). All of these are listed on the Lehigh Gap Nature Center’s property.

Developed through the partnership of the Bowmanstown Area Residents Connected and the D&L National Heritage Corridor, the project has been funded through the combined grants from the Pocono Forests & Waters Conservation Landscape, through the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources and the Appalachian Regional Commission.

Scott said Rodney Reeser, vice president of BARC, has been painting over graffiti for years, and played an instrumental role in seeing this project come to fruition.

BARC continues to raise funds for the completion of the project, which will require two more panels costing $4,000 each.

For more information, contact Scott at karascott2014@gmail.com, 610-703-0029 or visit BARC’s Facebook page at www.facebook.com/groups/gobarc.