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The archive will be available at http://archive.phillywatersheds.org for approximately one year (through September 2020). If you use or are responsible for content here that is not yet available elsewhere, please contact the PWD Digital Team.

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Wet Weather Tips: Basements and Inlets

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Heavy rainfall in Philadelphia today may cause some flooding—try to keep your street's sewer inlets clear of debris and check out some flooded basement tips after the jump.

German Engineering: Tempelhof Wasserpark

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Image: Johanna F. Barthmeier

Last week, the American Society of Landscape Architects announced the winners of the 2011 Student Awards, and a conceptual design for Tempelhof Airport in Berlin, Germany, caught our eye. The site's water management design is based on the folds of a paper airplane; stormwater and groundwater (Berlin lies close to the water table and gets a lot of rainfall) is moved, absorbed, filtered and collected through a zig-zag series of pools, plantings and contoured landforms. In effect, the space would be transformed into an urban water park with swimming areas for recreation and treatment pools for ecological education. Click here for more details on the plan by University of Pennsylvania graduate Johanna F. Barthmeier and a fascinating slideshow—again, this is a design project rather than an actual plan, but it's interesting to see innovative ideas in stormwater management.

Winning Websites: phillystormwater.org and phillyhistory.org

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Image: phillystormwater.org

It is, apparently, awards season on the Internet: Two PWD-related websites have taken home honors for excellence. Last week, URISA named phillystormwater.org the 2011 winner of the Exemplary Systems in Government award:

"This solution was deemed exemplary by the ESIG Review Committee because it is an application that has benefited all stakeholders, including both the Philadelphia Water Department staff and the public alike. The System is an application in green stormwater management that uses GIS to assess impervious site areas. It gives the public easy access to—and transparency to—stormwater charges, and the ability to see the effect on their bills should property owners consider greener strategies. Processes have also been developed to address the data quality and consistency issues as they arise. The PhillyStormwater system has made a substantial impact on the new stormwater billing process and saved hundreds of hours for the Water Department staff members per month. The system is the largest of its type in the country and certainly is progressive in the way it charges for stormwater management costs."

Elsewhere, the American Association for State and Local History betowed an Award of Merit upon phillyhistory.org, a site whose collection of photographs and maps includes material from the Water Department's archives. The award was conferred based on the site's achievement in the preservation and interpretation of state and local history.

Congratulations to both websites and their caretakers.

News Stream: WHYY Speaks for the Trees

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Image: phillytreemap.org

On yesterday's edition of Radio Times with Marty Moss-Coane, the topic of discussion was trees—planting and protecting Philadelphia's trees from pests and diseases. Listen to the program here; one of the many benefits of urban tree planting, says Pennsylvania Horticultural Society president Drew Becher, is that "it is one of the cheapest, easiest ways in order to ... help us with our stormwater issue."

Also, be sure to check out phillytreemap, a site where users can help map Philadelphia's tree canopy (pictured above) and examine the benefits (economic, air quality, water) provided by trees.

For more info on tree planting, visit our residents page on trees.

News Stream: Stormwater Problems, Solutions

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Illustration: Studio 2a

A pair of recent articles discuss the problems of stormwater runoff and Philadelphia's solutions. In this week's Philadelphia Inquirer, Sandy Bauers' article analyzed the relationship between urban development and flooding (which is particularly relevant in the wake of Irene):

"In the last decade, engineers, regulators, and developers have embraced the idea of turning parking lots, fields, and roofs into giant sponges that hold rainwater long enough to let it percolate into the ground.

Philadelphia has been touted as being emblematic of the solution: Its $2 billion plan to foster a plethora of smaller swales, gardens, green roofs, and more - instead of a giant underground tank that simply holds the water until it can be treated - is considered a national model. The city already has 10 acres of green roofs. But the whole plan is going to take 25 years to implement."

Meanwhile, a recent piece in OnEarth magazine highlighted some of the initiatives of PWD's Green City, Clean Waters program via a short article and excellent infographic (above): click on the image on OnEarth's site for a more detailed version.

"Cities can spend billions maintaining and upgrading this antiquated gray infastructure—or they can follow Philadelphia's lead and turn instead to green infrastructure. The principle is simple: instead of struggling to cope with the volume of water rushing through the sewers, prevent it from getting there in the first place by capturing it and filtering it slowly and naturally through the soil."

PWD's Hurricane Irene Report Card

 Fairmount DamA view of the swollen Schuylkill River at the Fairmount Water Works

 

As Hurricane Irene blew through Philadelphia last weekend, PWD's water and sewer infrastructure was put to the test. How did we do? Our infrastructure was designed to manage hurricanes and, with notable exceptions in very low-lying areas, the water was kept where it belonged. Even in Manayunk, where the floodwaters inundated Main Street, well-prepared citizens minimized the damage as much as possible.


Maybe it's not really a report card if you're grading yourself, but here’s how PWD stacked up by the numbers:

  • PWD wastewater treatment plants received almost 1 billion gallons of stormwater, more than twice their normal volume, and maintained performance.
  • PWD cleared 400 inlets in proactive preparation for Irene, and that number—along with the help of citizens—is, according to Mayor Nutter, "a great part of why we didn't have as much flooding as we could have possibly had."  
  • More than 55 PWD employees worked over the weekend to answer calls and pump out flooded basements.  
  • The Schuylkill and Delaware rivers crested at 13.5 ft. and 9.77 ft., respectively, in Philadelphia.

Philadelphia held up well overall but with saturated ground, trees did fall, electricity went out, and basements did flood. If you’re cleaning up, you’re not alone. After the jump, some tips to help with flooded basements.

 

What Would Venice Island Do?


Rendering of Venice Island project in Manayunk

WHYY's NewsWorks asked the question: How would the new Venice Island water basin have fared in Hurricane Irene?

If you were tuned in to local TV news over the weekend, you probably saw the situation in Manayunk: flooded roads near Main Street and Shurs Lane. Could the underground storage basin on nearby Venice Island—construction is just underway—have helped alleviate the flooding?

"At 400 feet long, 75 feet wide and 25 feet deep, the new basin will catch and temporarily store diverted storm flow from the sanitary sewer running along the Manayunk Canal. But would the new tank have prevented or lessened the hurricane-level flooding that doused part of Main Street over the weekend?

The short answer, officials say: Probably.

'This is a big tank but this was also a pretty good storm -- about 5 ½ inches over a 24-hour period,' [PWD spokeswoman Joanne] Dahme said in an email Monday. 'Without the modeling to confirm, we believe it would have worked well in this storm as rainfall was fairly steady, dispersed over a long period of time.'"

Click here for more information on the Venice Island project and to sign up for email updates.

News Stream: Shellfish Motives


Elliptio complanta freshwater mussel (Photo: Partnership for the Delaware Estuary)

Bivalves are everywhere: Here's a roundup of some recent articles on the local oyster and mussel population:

A report on mussels in the Delaware River near Philadelphia from Grid magazine:

"There's a lot more mussel work to be done out in the Delaware. In 2010, the research team found a species previously thought to be locally extinct, the Tidewater Mucket. The last comprehensive survey for Delaware River mussels was performed in 1919, and, as Thomas pointed out, the recent surveys have only looked in relatively shallow water. There's no telling what mussel beds sit in the channel."

One article on oyster reef restoration efforts in the Delaware Bay from the News of Cumberland County:

"This year, the task force is trying to promote awareness about oyster restoration after raising $200,000, said Jennifer Adkins, executive director of the Partnership for the Delaware Estuary. According to Adkins, oysters in the Delaware Bay have been hit hard with diseases and are being affected.

'Ultimately, our goals for oyster restoration are to get the oyster populations back to their historic levels. We’d love to see where the populations are high again and be more self-sustaining,' she said."

And a second article on oysters from CommunityPub.com:

"Sea captains employed by the Delaware Bay Oyster Restoration Task Force are currently wrapping up efforts to replenish oyster reefs off Delaware and New Jersey. According to past experience, these efforts will boost the economies of local bayshore communities by approximately $5 million over the coming years. In addition, oyster restoration also results in cleaner water and better fish habitat."

Toronto's Water Treatment Park

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Image: WATERFRONToronto

Think you know what a water treatment plant looks like? Sherbourne Common, a nearly completed treatment plant on Toronto's waterfront, is housed beneath a public park featuring dramatic concrete and light sculptures, an ice-skating rink, water channels and nearly 200 new trees. A blog post from the Dirt puts it best:

"In a marvel of thoughtful design and engineering, the new 3.6-acre, $30 million park commissioned by Waterfront Toronto and designed by a team led by landscape architecture firm Phillips Farevaag Smallenberg uses ultraviolet light to clean polluted water coming in from Lake Ontario. Given not-in-my-backyard (NIMBY) obstacles in cities are only expected to persist in the near term, these types of hybrid park-infrastructure projects make great sense, particularly given few communities can afford to build expensive, single-use 'dumb' infrastructure. Many communities may jump at the chance for a beautiful park that does so much more. IMBY please?"

Check out an extensive image gallery of renderings and actual photos of Sherbourne Common; a picture of one of the sites' water channels and bioinfiltration beds after the jump.

Hello, MOTU

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40th Street Bridge, to be completed in December 2012

The Mayor's Office of Transportation and Utilities—otherwise known as MOTU—is now blogging; check out the blog here for the latest insight and information. On what, exactly, you ask? Simply put, MOTU was created by Mayor Nutter to coordinate the efforts of city agencies (Water Department, Streets Department, Parks and Recreation, etc.) and make sure plans are made and things get done, whether it's the maintenance of a bike lane, subway line or airport runway. The projects MOTU oversees run the gamut from LED traffic lights and recycling initiatives to the airport expansion and the construction of a new 40th Street Bridge (pictured above).

The latest news from MOTU is the Pedestrian Plaza Program, modeled after successful initiatives in New York and San Francisco, and the city is taking suggestions on where to place them:

"Pedestrian Plazas provide the public the chance to sit and enjoy the city’s vibrant street life. This program will make our streets safer for pedestrians and drivers alike by converting underutilized street segments into public space. Working with community organizations, the City will paint over underutilized street segments and allow the community to install benches, tables, chairs, bike parking and some limited landscaping, turning excess roadway into Pedestrian Plazas."

Be sure to check out the official MOTU site as well for more information on the department's projects and mission.

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