Philadelphia Water Commissioner Debra McCarty and City of Philadelphia Managing Director Michael DiBerardinis (right) announce that Philadelphia more than doubled five-year pollution reduction targets. Credit: Brian Rademaekers/Philadelphia Water

The City of Philadelphia announced a major achievement accomplished through the Green City, Clean Waters program at a June 16 celebration marking the five-year anniversary of the Green Stormwater Infrastructure plan’s adoption.

Joined by community and business partners, industry experts, U.S. EPA Regional Administrator Shawn Garwin, Pa. DEP Regional Director Cosmo Servidio and City of Philadelphia Managing Director Michael DiBeradinis at the historic Fairmount Water Works, officials from Philadelphia Water unveiled figures showing that the City more than doubled five-year pollution reduction targets established at the start of the Green City, Clean Waters program in June 2011.

All this week, we’ll be taking a look at the broad range of water infrastructure that Philadelphia Water maintains to make sure people, businesses and City departments have constant access to clean, top-quality water.

This exploration of our ongoing work is a part of Infrastructure Week (May 16-23), a national movement highlighting the importance of infrastructure and infrastructure funding. This year’s focus: #InfrastructureMatters.

Most people know that clean water matters. Recent events have raised awareness about the importance of safe public drinking water, and people across America are thinking about their local water supply today in way that they haven’t in decades.

But too often, people don’t realize how valuable water—and the infrastructure needed to protect and deliver it—is until something goes wrong. Infrastructure Week is about recognizing that #InfrastructureMatters so that we take care of what we have and invest in the vast water system that has evolved in Philadelphia over the last 200 years.

UPDATE: Please join us Friday, October 9th at 10:30 a.m. to meet the partners behind this project! Details here.

Right: The frame of the living wall with native plants ready for installation. Right: The nearly completed wall before the installation of four stormwater tanks. Credit: Philadelphia Water and SHIFT_DESIGN.

Philadelphia residents and tourists in the city’s historic Independence Hall area can now soak in a truly stunning piece of green infrastructure. Thanks to a partnership between Philadelphia Water, the National Park Service, Independence National Historical Park and SHIFT_DESIGN, a breathtaking new “living wall" is now managing stormwater runoff from the roof of the Department of Interior building located at 3rd and Walnut streets.

And, if the steady stream of passersby who stopped to admire and ask about the project during last week’s installation is any indicator, the colorful grid of flowers and grasses is already a success from a public education standpoint. 

Featuring over 70 individual plants—all of them native to Pennsylvania—suspended from a vertical structure, the living wall collects rainwater from the roof in four stainless steel tanks. Instead of flowing into Philadelphia’s sewer system, which can become overwhelmed during intense rainstorms, the water is pumped from the storage tanks via solar power into irrigation lines that sustain the plant life.

The wall was made possible as a result of the partnership between Philadelphia Water, the National Park Service and the Pennsylvania Dept. of Conservation and Natural Resources’ Coastal Nonpoint Pollution (CNPP) grant program. A Philadelphia-based business, SHIFT_DESIGN conceived, fabricated and installed the living wall, even donating some of their services to make this billboard for the functional beauty of green stormwater infrastructure a reality.

"For Philadelphia Water, this project is part of ongoing efforts to promote a better understanding of our Green City, Clean Waters program," says Paul Fugazzotto, a member of the department’s public engagement team who worked to develop the partnership. "This living wall will inspire businesses and residents to pursue creating their own innovative, beautiful green tools."

Mario Gentile, founder of SHIFT_DESIGN, says that, like all of the firm’s projects, the living wall was made using completely locally sourced and recycled materials.

"This is a completely self-contained system, so it’s not taxing the grid from an electricity or water perspective," says Gentile. "We like to do projects like this to prove that it’s doable."

Drexel students Oliver Law, Hanna Karraby, Aimee Turner and Iat Chi Sin are working with SHIFT_DESIGN through a cooperative program and helped install the wall, which is scheduled to be finished this week after a two-and-a-half year process. 

Check out our Flickr page to see more images of this stunning living wall and the installation process. 

Juan Matos of the PowerCorpsPHL GSI Maintenance Program with President Obama on July 14.

We’re always talking about what a great relationship we have with PowerCorpsPHL, and we love to point out when the young Philadelphians who help maintain Green City, Clean Waters infrastructure enrich their lives and even turn the experience into jobs in the green industry.

But here’s one benefit we never could have imagined: Meeting the President of the United States.

That’s exactly what happened to Assistant Crew Leader Juan Matos of the PowerCorpsPHL GSI (Green Stormwater Infrastructure) Maintenance Program when President Obama visited the city for this week’s NAACP convention.

Matos, a 23-year-old dad from North Philadelphia, is in his second term of service as an AmeriCorps member with PowerCorpsPHL and joined the program in September 2014.
He didn’t find out that he was going to meet with Obama, who wanted to learn more about successful re-entry programs for those who have been incarcerated, until Sunday night.

Apparently, the president was impressed with Matos' bio, which PowerCorps provided. For Matos, it all came as a pretty big shock.

“It was, like, out of the blue,” says Matos. “I had no clue what he was going to say or what I was going to ask him.”

During their Tuesday meeting at the Pennsylvania Convention Center, Matos says Obama put him at ease with a relaxed conversation.

“We talked about what it was like for me after I got out and about my family, and how PowerCorps helped me out and gave me guidance and skills I didn’t have before,” says Matos.

Still, he was in for another surprise during Obama’s speech: Matos, PowerCorps, and green jobs got a special mention.

Watch a clip of his comments about the program and Matos here:

Obama’s words, Matos says, really stood out.

“I was impressed that he was really paying attention to what I said, because he brought up details of the things we talked about in his speech,” Matos reflected on Wednesday.

In particular, Obama mentioned that Matos’ biggest motivation to succeed—his daughters, Kyleigh, 3, and Jaylianis, 5—was something he could relate to as a dad of two girls.

Obama also talked about the value of the green jobs training that PowerCorps provides:

"[Juan] was given an opportunity to get trained on green jobs that are helping the environment, but also gave him a marketable skill," Obama told the audience.

Matos agreed with the president, noting that he’s learned much through the program that will help him when he begins a job search.

"Before, I didn’t know what GSI even was,” says Matos. “Now, I work with a crew that does maintenance all over the city on bumpouts, rain gardens, tree trenches, all of that, making sure they work properly. I’ve gained a lot of skills; I got brotherhood, I got a mentor. PowerCorps is a great program for helping people."

Today, Matos is confident that he can have a bright future. But before he learned how to work with green infrastructure, that future wasn't so clear.  

“If it wasn’t for PowerCorps, I could have been back out on the street. They helped with school, they kept me working. They gave me a real second chance.”

To learn more about PowerCorpsPHL and how they help us maintain Green City, Clean Waters, vist their Service Partners page.