An editorial in today's Philadelphia Inquirer both lauds the city's plan to depave 500 acres of impervious surface and leaks the news that a groundbreaking ceremony will take place on Thursday to kick off the second phase of the Green 2015 action plan. A partnership of several organizations—the Philadelphia Water Department, the Department of Parks and Recreation, the Trust for Public Land and the Mural Arts Foundation—will implement the effort, which has both recreational and environmental benefits:

The Water Department’s role is significant. Replacing pavement with planted and porous surfaces will pay environmental dividends by reducing the polluted runoff that ends up in streams and rivers when it’s not backing up into homeowners’ basements.

Pictured above is the city's first depaving project, completed in Frankford last week.

Yesterday, a group of volunteers braved the wet weather to plant the final two rain gardens at a partially depaved lot at Eadom and Bridge streets (just west of I-95) in Frankford. A crew including employees of the Philadelphia Water Department and GreenTreks, along with volunteers from the NorthEast Treatment Center, planted almost a dozen varieties of vegetation (including sedum, switchgrass, Virginia sweetspire and Viburnum) and brought the total number of rain gardens in the lot to six. In all, the Eadom Street project has converted 10,000 square feet of impervious concrete to rain gardens that allow stormwater to infiltrate the soil instead of flowing into our sewers. The rain gardens will manage stormwater runoff from two acres.

Learn more about depaving.

More photos of yesterday's planting after the jump.

There's a lot of traffic on the Schuylkill, but for once it's not a backup on I-76. Thanks to the Fairmount fish ladder (as well as upstream fish ladders and dam removals), shad are once again migrating up the Schuylkill River to spawn. The resurgence of shad indicates improved ecological conditions, as shad populations decimated by pollution in the early 20th century began making a comeback in the 1980s. Fish ladders such as the one constructed at the Fairmount Dam (pictured above) four years ago provide a stairway to the Schuylkill, whose main stem and tributaries are the shad's native habitat. A recent report by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (which sponsors the fish ladder along with the Philadelphia Water Department) points to the project's success:

"The data shows the project has been an incredible success," said Project Manager Terry Fowler, a planner with the Philadelphia District. "Certainly the fish have voted and we're happy with the result." Fowler said the functionality of the rebuilt ladder was a vast improvement over what existed previously. The District rebuilt the entrance and exit gates, chamber pools, and a structure to help fish find the entrance to the passage. Project Biologist Mark Eberle said the features help simulate the natural experience a migratory fish would have when traveling upstream.

The graph below indicates the significant impact the fish ladder has had on the number of shad passing through—more than 3,000 in 2011:

Learn more about what PWD is doing to monitor fish populations and restore fish habitat.