Visitors to Tempe Town Lake will no longer be able to view the river mosaic mural located near its north shore as the city prepares to remove the mural and store it until the completion of the Loop 202 freeway expansion.

Volunteers and city-contracted workers began chipping away at the mural, originally completed in 2000, Wednesday morning.

Rebecca Ross and Jeff East were the local artists involved in designing the mural.

Now, Ross leads the effort to remove the mural and store it until expansion of the Red Mountain Freeway portion of the Loop 202 is completed in 2010.

“I think there’s a great sense of ownership to the project,” Ross said.

The mural, “River Then, River Now, River Future,” is located on the south-facing retaining wall of the freeway, visible on the Rio Salado bike path.

There was surprisingly little graffiti on the eight-year-old mural, she said.

The project was successful in getting people to take care of the mural by having members of the community contribute to it, Ross said.

The mural was constructed from a mosaic of ceramic tiles, each one uniquely created by Tempe elementary school students and visitors to Tempe community programs, Ross said.

Laurie Nessel, a worker contracted by the city, said the mosaic was created over the course of nearly four years and is composed of 61 panels that measure approximately 3 feet wide by 10 feet tall.

To remove the panels, workers had to gain access to the bolts mounting the panels to the freeway retaining wall by chipping away at the tiles located directly above the bolts, Nessel said.

In order to minimize damage to the mural, a worker with a metal detector was brought in to locate the bolts for each panel, she said.

“It’s such a pity that they don’t make the freeway the size they intend to from the start,” Nessel said.

Ross said the pieces of the mural had been mapped together before workers and volunteers began dismantling the panels so they could be reassembled in their original order.

“We’re trying to save as many tiles as we can,” Ross said.

Ross said there were still extra tiles available from the mosaic’s assembly to replace tiles that were lost or broken.

C.J. Kennedy, a city-contracted worker for the project and friend of Ross, said she decided to get involved after Ross told her about the need for volunteers to help with the disassembly.

“It’s great working with good friends,” Kennedy said.

Kennedy was a fine arts specialist for the city of Tempe when the mural first went up.

“I think it’s so neat that the city is investing in taking [the mural] down so carefully and then reinstalling it,” Kennedy said. “That speaks very highly of our city.”

Ali Lucero, an ASU graduate of fine arts and ceramics, was one of the volunteers present Wednesday morning.

Lucero said she thought volunteering for the project would be neat because the mural is similar to other mural projects she had worked on in the past.

“I really love what the kids did,” Lucero said. “There’s very unique tiles here.”

Linda Sleight, a retired Tempe elementary school teacher who was also helping with the disassembly, said she was involved with the project when the mural was first made.

“It’s really a great representation of all the schools in Tempe,” Sleight said.

Reach the reporter at deborah.bevers@asu.edu.