PWD recently participated in the 7th annual Pennsylvania Stormwater Management Symposium held October 17-18th at Villanova University. The goal of the symposium is to advance understanding of sustainable stormwater management in all aspects of planning, design, implementation and regulatory compliance. This year’s symposium had over 50 technical podium and poster presentations and tours of green infrastructure projects in the Delaware Valley.

PWD’s Office of Watersheds presented two technical presentations. Rachel Ahern and Shelly Jones (Green Stormwater Infrastructure Planning & Design) presented “Stormwater Management: A Framework for Site Design.” Stephen White (Green Stormwater Infrastructure Maintenance) presented “When it Rains it Stores: PWD's SCM Monitoring.”  The conference abstracts and video presentations are available via the Villanova website.

Sandy Sorlien, an educator from the Fairmount Water Works led a tour, "Reinventing the Neighborhood and Urban LIDs" Beginning at the Big Green Block, a site rich in green stormwater infrastructure, the group explored stormwater tree trenches, rain gardens, a porous pavement parking lot, underground detention infiltration facilities, green roofs and rainwater cisterns. Afterwards they visited Liberty Lands Park, an industrial brownfield, transformed into a vital community green space. This site featured a rain garden, community gardens and 180 trees of varying species. Ending their tour in Columbus Square, particpants viewed Philadelphia’s first stormwater planter.

The second tour offered by PWD, "What’s Happening in the Wissahickon Watershed,” was led led by Erik Haniman and Ken Hinde. The tour started at Saylor Grove, a one acre stormwater wetland designed to treat an estimated 70 million gallons of urban stormwater per year. Their next stop was the 5,400 feet long stream restoration project at Bells Mill, including improved riparian habitat and energy dissipating stone to protect the stream from stormwater runoff discharged by nearby stormwater outfalls. The tour ended with a final stop to the stormwater treatment wetland, Wises Mill. This two acre area of Fairmount Park treats a portion of the stormwater from a 90-acre watershed prior to discharging to the headwaters of Wises Mill’s lower branch. This effort aims to restore and stabilize areas of Wises Mill Run that have been significantly undermined by previous gray stormwater infrastructure and dams on this stream.

Congratulations to MOTU as it wraps up the celebration of its 5th Birthday! The Mayor’s Office of Transportation and Utilities (MOTU) has been working hard to improve coordination among agencies and departments in the City to help Philadelphia respond to the needs of the 21st Century. MOTU recently released a new report highlighting accomplishments over the last five years.

Photo Credits:Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia

Among these achievements MOTU has increased mobility by expanding the bicycle and pedestrian network by investing in more bike racks, pedestrian parklets and plazas, and safer bike lanes. Over the course of five years, Philadelphia has seen a 20% reduction in traffic fatalities and 10% reduction in crashes involving pedestrians after 2,400 intersections were retimed and 400 pedestrian countdown signals installed. In addition, air travel has improved through the addition of five new airlines servicing the Philadelphia International Airport.

Photo Credits:Rick McMullin

 MOTU has also been a key partner in implementing PWD’s Green City, Clean Waters program. This collaboration has resulted in the installation of 1100 green acres, reducing stormwater runoff by 500 million gallons annually.This year, there are even more projects underway, including 161 stormwater trenches, 33 stormwater bumpouts, and 33 projects utilizing porous pavement.

Photo Credits:Schuylkill Banks

MOTU’s efforts have not only improved conditions in the city but have also resulted in taxpayer savings. To date, the program has been awarded about $91 million in competitive grants from federal, state and non-profit sources.

To learn more about all of MOTU’s accomplishments and find out about future projects, read their report. Happy Birthday MOTU!

Tookany/Tacony-Frankford Watershed Partnership, Inc. (TTF) is dedicated to enhancing the health and vitality of the TTF Watershed, including neighborhoods Philadelphia and Abington, Cheltenham, Jenkintown, Rockledge, and Springfield in Montgomery County. They work with residents, schools, community organizations, environmental advisory councils, businesses and policy makers to build watershed awareness.

On Thursday October 3rd, TTF teamed up with 7th graders from Hackley School in Tarrytown, NY to mark 150 stormwater drains with stickers that say “No Dumping, Drains to River” to help raise awareness in the surrounding neighborhood about where litter goes when it enters the drain. In addition to marking drains, students picked up litter and leftflyers for residents, informing them about watersheds and combined sewer systems.

Representatives from PWD also helped mark drains and brought an interactive model to demonstrate how combined sewers work. Students poured glittered water, representing waste water, into the model home and watched it travel down the pipe, get filtered and returned to the river. However, when they added rain to the streets at the same time as “using water” in the house, they learned that excess stormwater caused the system to overflow, sending diluted waste into the river. After all the fun, everyone wrapped up a day with pretzels and apple cider.