Part-time positions as Stormwater Property Assessors in PWD’s Rain Check Program are now available! If you are knowledgeable about stormwater management or have a background in engineering, design, or construction, consider joining the Rain Check team.

Rain Check is a Philadelphia Water Department program that helps residents manage stormwater and beautify their homes. Through the program, PWD will help pay for the cost of landscape improvements that manage stormwater. Visit the Rain Check webpage to learn more.

Stormwater Property Assessors visit participant homes and analyze properties to determine what stormwater management features will be most effective. Assessors can set their own schedules and are paid $300 per assessment. These are part-time positions. The Energy Coordinating Agency will be hosting a required training session on June 24th and 25th for anyone interested in becoming a stormwater assessor. For more information, please read the position description. To sign up for the training session, contact Zach Popkin at the Energy Coordinating Agency at zacharyp@ecasavesenergy.org.

Rain Check Assessor Training

June 24 & June 25 (both days required, time TBD)

Knight Green Jobs Training Center

106 W Clearfield St.

Philadelphia, PA 19133

215.609.1450

Had you been on the 300 block of Christian Street on Saturday afternoon, you might have asked yourself, “What are these blue dots all over the street? Is this graffiti?” You may have walked along the dots down the street - to the Delaware River -looked out across to New Jersey and thought, “This is beautiful, but why I am here?” If you had looked down below you, you may have noticed an outfall, spewing excess rainwater from the streets. However, this is the very end of our story, a story that starts miles away, only to end right below your very feet.

The Mural Arts Program and the Philadelphia Water Department have joined forces to help Philadelphia residents recognize the importance of the water cycle in Philadelphia and they’re doing it through a language everyone understands – art. With the help of environmental artist and sculptor, Stacy Levy, a simple but effective design was created and Saturday marked the first day of installation. With the help of neighbors and friends from The Courts residential community, we traced, cut, painted and even heated (with an intense propane torch) blue dots to the sidewalk and streets. The dots represent water and the design is intended to demonstrate  how water flows over streets and other impermeable surfaces to the inlets, as well as the journey this water takes from the inlets to the Delaware River. Follow the dots downstream and you’ll find yourself facing the Delaware River. The very place a majority of our stormwater runoff ends up.

So the next time you’re near 3rd and Christian Streets (in front of the beautiful Southwark Garden), search the sidewalk for the blue water dots and remember how the story of your water ends.

Learn more about the story of stormwater here.

To see photos from the installation, visit the Water Department’s Flickr.

Giggles and screams filled the Shissler Recreation Center playground last Thursday. Soaking wet children ran up and down the pavement between beds of ornamental grasses and repurposed mill stones; some, still in their graduation gowns. Thursday May 23rd was a day of celebration for the parents and children of Shissler’s 2013 pre-school graduation. After a long ceremony of singing, dancing and pictures, the students raced out to the playground for the ribbon cutting of Shissler Spray Park. Tentative at first, the children eventually ran in and out of the ground sprinklers, splashing and playing together on the hot May day. 

The spray park, a joint initiative between Philadelphia Parks and Recreation and the Mural Arts program, became an official part of ‘The Big Green Block’ in Kensington. The Big Green Block, located just off the Berks El station, is named for all of the environmental features of the area – including the LEED certified Kensington High School for the Creative and Performing Arts (CAPA) and PWD green stormwater infrastructure tools (stormwatertree trenches, rain gardens and more). The New Kensington Community Development Corporation (CDC) has further plans to re-do the basketball courts at the neighboring Shissler Recreation Center.Learn more about the creation of Kensington’s big green block here.