This blog is part of our Infrastructure Week 2017 campaign. See our Twitter, Facebook and Instagram accounts for exclusive content not available on the blog. We’ll be talking about a variety of projects and topics May 15-19. Learn more about the infrastructure that keeps our city running and help us make the case for smart investments in our nation’s water, roads, bridges, airports and more.

If you follow local news at all, you’ve probably seen some of the dramatic footage showing major water main breaks that have left the stores of Bakers Centre in East Falls flooded three times in just three years:

Breaks like those at Bakers Centre are unusual for a few reasons, not least of which is amount of water that spilled. In Philadelphia over the last five years, we’ve average a little over two main breaks per day—a rate that is actually less than the national average. Most of our breaks involve mains that are under two inches in diameter and don’t make the news because the impacts are, in comparison, minor.

For our final Infrastructure Week post, we are looking at a massive, multi-year project that will help reduce flooding related to heavy rains in several neighborhoods. Like many other cities, Philadelphia is dealing with a sewer system designed for a time when there were far fewer hard surfaces like streets, parking lots and buildings.

Because those surfaces don’t absorb rain, the water becomes stormwater runoff, which can overwhelm sewers, leading to localized flooding and combined sewer overflows. While the City is relying on Green Stormwater Infrastructure investments made through the Green City, Clean Waters program to deal with this challenge, those green tools are more effective when we also improve our traditional sewer system.

A good example of an investment in our existing system that will enhance Green City, Clean Waters projects is the Cohocksink Storm Flood Relief project, also called the Northern Liberties SFR. The project is named after the Cohocksink Creek, which once flowed through Kensington and Northern Liberties and emptied into the Delaware River not far from where SugarHouse Casino stands today.

Like many small streams in Philadelphia, the Cohocksink was covered over and integrated into the sewer system in the mid to late 1800s.
Today, the Cohocksink sewer system must manage stormwater drainage from more than 1,000 acres of urban land. 

To get the inside scoop on the Cohocksink improvements, we put a few questions to project manager Bill Dobbins, an engineer who has worked with Philadelphia Water since 2001.

“Design for Cast Iron Wheel by F. Graff” from the Frederick Graff Collection at the Franklin Institute. Credit: Philadelphia Water, the Franklin Institute and The Athenaeum of Philadelphia.

This post explores the foundations of Philadelphia's water infrastructure as we continue to highlight the crucial systems that keep Philly running during Infrastructure Week 2016. 

Last year, Philadelphia Water historian Adam Levine joined department employees like long-time engineer Drew Brown on a tour of the Franklin Institute archives, which include a trove of 18th and 19th century drawings by Frederick Graff, an engineer himself with incredible artistic talent who helped to design and operate some of Philadelphia’s earliest water infrastructure. Included in the collection are a number of water-related works by other artists, engineers and cartographers. 

Graff’s collection—much of which incorporates watercolor and focuses on hydraulic systems and Philadelphia’s rivers and streams—showcases a fascinating blend of the technical and beautiful, capturing the most finite details of buildings, machines and natural terrain with breathtaking style.

While they may be easy to overlook, you can find at least one of our 75,000-plus storm drains on nearly every street in Philadelphia. Designed to take stormwater away from our streets, storm drains (or inlets) form a direct connection between our neighborhoods and the watersheds in which we live.

What does that connection mean? It means that, when people litter, leave pet waste behind, or let old cars leak oil in the street, that stuff washes down the storm drain and enters our water supply.

On the other hand, inlets blocked with trash, snow, leaves, construction debris and sediment can make local flooding worse when we have heavy rain and water can’t drain properly.

So, who takes care of our storm drains? And what can residents do to keep pollution out of our waterways and ensure the storm drains work properly?

Here to answer some of those questions during Infrastructure Week is William Shields, the head of our Inlet Cleaning Unit.