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Parks and Recreation

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Get Your Gloves & Grabbers: Spring Watershed Cleanups Are Right Around the Corner!

Feb 9, 2017
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Our first season of volunteer cleanups with local apparel company United By Blue was a huge success, and we’re excited to start another round this spring.

In 2016, nearly 1,000 volunteers joined PWD , United By Blue, Philadelphia Parks and Recreation and other partners at 15 clean ups to remove nearly 33 tons of trash from waterfront green spaces like Bartram’s Garden and Penn Treaty Park.

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Thursday: Celebrate Improvements at Conestoga Playground

Dec 6, 2016
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Room for Growth at 53rd and Media is a Mural Arts project heralding more improvements, including green infrastructure that will keep 32.5 million gallons of stormwater pollution out of the Schuylkill each year, coming to the site.
Mural Art’s “Room for Growth” project at the Conestoga Rec Center. Credit: Mural Arts

You’re invited to celebrate big improvements at the Conestoga Community Playground, located at 53rd and Media streets in the Hestonville neighborhood.

Join Philadelphia Parks & Recreation, the Philadelphia Water Department, Philadelphia Mural Arts and the Trust for Public Land’s Parks for People Philadelphia team at 3:30 p.m. on December 8 as we mark this special occasion at the playground.

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Kelly Drive Water Stations Head to Hibernation After a Thirsty Season

Nov 28, 2016
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Schuylkill River Trail users fill up at one four water stations located along Kelly Drive. People filling up at the stations saved about 141,650 single-use half-liter disposable bottles this season. Credit: PWD
Schuylkill River Trail users fill up at one four water stations located along Kelly Drive. People filling up at the stations saved about 156,025 single-use half-liter disposable bottles this season. Credit: PWD

Following an enthusiastic welcome in spring and a summer of heavy use, we’ve winterized the four new water stations installed along the Kelly Drive stretch of the Schuylkill River Trail.

Shutting the stations down as we approach winter involves turning off the water, draining the lines, and giving each of the units a good cleaning. We know: it’s sad to see these amazing assets for trail users go into hibernation, but it’s a necessary precaution needed to make sure that extreme cold doesn’t lead to frozen and burst pipes during the colder months of the year.

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‘Love Your Park’ Event Aims for Community Building Around Green Infrastructure Projects

Nov 8, 2016
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In this post, Amanda Krakovitz, a recent Penn State grad now working with the Philadelphia Water Dept. through the Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA) and SERVE Philadelphia program, talks about an event she helped plan to build community engagement around Green City, Clean Waters projects in South Philly.

Amanda Krakovitz helps provide information about the Green City, Clean Waters program and upcoming projects.
VISTA Amanda Krakovitz helps provide information about the Green City, Clean Waters program and upcoming projects.

By: Amanda Krakovitz,
SERVE Philadelphia Water Ambassador

The Philadelphia Water Department (PWD) and the Friends of Mifflin Square are teaming up this year on November 12 for Love Your Park Day, a city-wide volunteer effort dedicated to cleaning up our parks that’s organized by Philadelphia Parks and Recreation and the Fairmount Park Conservancy.

PWD and the Friends group are taking the lead on the clean-up of Weinberg Park, located at 6th and Jackson Streets, just a block from Mifflin Square. Volunteers will meet at noon and help pick up trash, paint benches with Mural Arts and learn about upcoming green infrastructure projects in the park. There will be a rain drop building activity for kids and drinks and snacks for everyone.

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Photos and More: Big Celebration Welcomes New Rain Garden, Mural at Vacant Lot Site

Oct 6, 2016
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We want to send out a big thank you to all who came out to celebrate the new rain gardens and mural in Hestonville yesterday! Below you’ll find photos from the event and coverage from local TV stations:

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Come See How Green City, Clean Waters Helped Transform a Vacant Lot into a Community Gem

Sep 28, 2016
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This is close-up image showing an American shad on the mural at 55th and Hunter Streets. The mural features raised and textured elements that make it pop off the wall.
This detail shows shad depicted in the new West Phila. mural created by Eurhi Jones and Mike Reali. Credit: Philadelphia Water

What happens when the nation’s boldest green infrastructure program meets the nation’s boldest mural arts program in a vacant West Philly lot?

The public is invited see for themselves at the Heston Rain Garden Mural Dedication & Ribbon Cutting event, to be held on Wednesday, October 5 at 3:30 p.m. at 55th and Hunter streets in the Hestonville neighborhood.

Join Philadelphia Water, Parks and Recreation, the Mural Arts Program, Councilman Curtis Jones, the Hestonville Civic Association and community members in celebrating the first Green City, Clean Waters vacant land transformation, a project that turned an empty lot into a green space that manages stormwater, protects local waterways, and features a vibrant water-themed mural from Philly artists Eurhi Jones and Mike Reali.

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Photos and Prizes: 2016 Philly Fun Fishing Fest One of Best Yet

Sep 16, 2016
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Alex Sandoval caught the biggest fish in the under 14 category with this 22-inch catfish. Credit: Philadelphia Water
Alex Sandoval caught the biggest fish in the under 14 category with this 22-inch catfish. Credit: Philadelphia Water

Thank you to all who came out to the 2016 Philly Fun Fishing Fest at Schuylkill Banks on Saturday, Sept. 10!

Our partners at Parks and Recreation, the Schuylkill River Development Corporation, and the Pa. Fish and Boat Commission made it possible to have one of the best days on the river yet, with 195 participants and 297 fish caught (and released).

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Philadelphia Water to Provide Updates on East Park Reservoir Work

May 10, 2016
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This graphic shows the location of two 30 million-gallon drinking water tanks currently being constructed at East Park Reservoir. Credit: Philadelphia Water
This graphic shows the location of two 30 million-gallon drinking water tanks currently being constructed at East Park Reservoir. Click the image to see the full project fact sheet. Credit: Philadelphia Water

Representatives from Philadelphia Water will be at the May 11 Strawberry Mansion CDC meeting to provide updates on construction at the East Park Reservoir.

Topics include the work schedule, progress on the project, upcoming work, and info on how residents can get newsletter updates. The presentation will be followed by a Q&A.

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Cliveden Park Celebrates 5 Years of Green City, Clean Waters!

May 5, 2016
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The terraced rain gardens of Cliveden Park in fall (top) and spring. The structures provide beautiful landscaping while managing stormwater from nearby streets and protecting local streams. Credit: Philadelphia Water
The terraced rain gardens of Cliveden Park in fall (top) and spring. The structures provide beautiful landscaping while managing stormwater from nearby streets and protecting local streams. Philadelphia Water

Join Philadelphia Water next Saturday, May 14, at Cliveden Park, located at Chew Ave. and E. Johnson Street in Mt. Airy, from 9 a.m. to noon for a special Love Your Park Week event with the Friends of Cliveden and Fairmount Water Works educators.

We will be cleaning up this gorgeous public space and showing off Cliveden’s amazing green stormwater infrastructure with a tour exploring how water flows through the park’s unique terraced rain gardens, nourishing the native plants and soaking naturally into the ground instead of overwhelming Mt. Airy’s sewers.

The event is part of our ongoing 5 Down celebrations highlighting the thousands of new green stormwater tools added to Philadelphia neighborhoods through public and private investment during the first five years of the 25-year Green City, Clean Waters program. Working together, the green infrastructure tools now found at hundreds of sites across the city help to keep over 600 million gallons of polluted water out of our rivers and streams each year.

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Cleaner Streets = Cleaner Rivers and Creeks

Apr 19, 2016
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With more than 900 projects scattered across the city, this Saturday’s Philly Spring Cleanup was the largest ever—and that’s a pretty big deal considering this volunteer-driven event has already been praised as “America’s biggest single-day urban cleanup” for years now.

First held in 2007, Philly Spring Cleanup has grown into a movement that brings neighbors together by harnessing a passion for litter-free communities. From a watershed protection perspective, we love seeing that passion transformed into action because so much of the litter and trash collected from streets, parks and empty lots on Saturday would eventually wash into Philly’s rivers and creeks.

While the 2016 results haven’t been tallied yet, last year’s cleanup (featuring 718 projects) netted 836,100 pounds of trash, 104,260 pounds of tires and 107,580 pounds of recyclables—all stuff that could very well have ended up in our water.

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