A rain garden manages stormwater at Liberty Lands Park, Northern Liberties.

During our last blog series we talked about how the rising costs of “big ticket items” are a large part of what’s driving PWD's rate adjustments. We should also explain that we aren’t proposing these adjustments without first doing everything we can to balance increasing costs with cuts to our expenses. 

Some of the most significant savings come from the Green City, Clean Waters plan. This is the City of Philadelphia's plan to meet requirements for reducing the overflow of sewage into the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers during rain storms. While other cities have been faced with costs as high as $8 billion for creating entirely new tunnels to separate storm water from waste water, PWD will spend about a quarter of that over the next several years on green infrastructure meant to keep much of the storm water from ever entering the system. The end result: fewer streets torn up for months to install new tunnels and more trees and other greenery throughout the city, providing cleaner air and water while reducing the urban “heat island” effect that cooks us each summer.

These are investments that will pay off down the road in lower maintenance costs, less strain on the current infrastructure and fewer gallons of water that need to be treated at our sewage treatment plants. This doesn’t even begin to capture the lower costs that will come from an overall healthier, cleaner environment when you factor in lower healthcare expenses and less need for massive clean-ups of our rivers and streams.

It’s a win-win… a less expensive way of enacting these mandated measures to clean up our stormwater process and lower costs down the line as we realize the benefits of these investments.

For more information about Green City, Clean Waters, check out the Year in Review to see how far we’ve come already and learn more about where we’re going.  For a highly technical analysis of the cost-savings from Green City, Clean Waters, view Section 9 of the plan which compares alternatives to the green infrastructure approach. 

Have you noticed Green City, Clean Waters projects in your neighborhood? Share them with us on our Facebook page.

Shoemaker Green, at the University of Pennsylvania, is one example of the projects featured in the Soak it Up! Exhibition. Photo Credit: PlanPhilly Flickr

Have you heard about the Infill Philadelphia: Soak it Up! initiative? Infill Philadelphia: Soak It Up!  is a partnership between the Philadelphia Water Department, Community Design Collaborative (CDC),  and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) to explore how green stormwater infrastructure can revitalize urban neighborhoods. The kick-off party in October featured an exhibition of designs for managing stormwater in sustainable and innovative ways. The event was sold out, but the CDC has put together this online portfolio that documents the exhibition.Check out the document and see what progressive stormwater management can look like.

So far, the Infill Philadelphia: Soak It Up!  initiative has hosted other events including two design charrettes; one focused on transforming urban schoolyards, the other on Transit Oriented Development. Still to come are the design competition presentations where finalists will present their solutions for three different urban stormwater challenges in the exciting PechaKucha style, a fast and dynamic lightning round presentation format that is sure to be entertaining and inspiring. This event will be held at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University on March 7, 2013. Find out how you can purchase tickets or get involved by visiting the CDC’s Infill: Soak it Up page. 

A Water Department Vessel skims trash off the Schuylkill River. Trash can be picked off the river, but other pollutants require specialized detection and treatment.

As we spend the week talking about the big-ticket items that made this month’s rate changes necessary, we can't forget the work PWD does to maintain the health and safety of our ratepayers.

Today’s Water Department customers rely on us to protect them from pollutants that past generations didn’t have to worry about. We are already taking steps to keep our drinking water safe and improve the detection of Iodine 131, an element used to treat thyroid disease, and pollutants from Marcellus Shale gas drilling.

PWD takes its role as the protector of our region’s drinking water very seriously. For us, the rivers aren’t just the source of our product; they’re a major environmental, recreational and tourism asset. The revenue we receive from our ratepayers is used in large part to help us protect our drinking water supply both for our current customers and future generations of Philadelphians.

Do you have questions about any of these issues? Feel free to get in touch with us on our Facebook page. You can also go to our website to read more about Iodine 131 or Marcellus Shale drilling in the Delaware River basin. 

We've mentioned in previous blogs that we've got better priced water than our suburban friends. Our infrastructure has to stay ahead of the curve to keep it that way.  Photo- Randy Calderone.

Now that we’re into the New Year, most of our customers have probably gotten their first water bills of the year. As we explained at the beginning of the month, rate changes that were approved as a part of our public hearing process this summer and fall went into effect starting January 1st. While rate increases are always difficult, we don’t take them lightly and turn to them only to cover the costs of “big-ticket” items that occur in the process of providing the same clean, safe, reliable drinking water our ratepayers have come to depend on.

For the next few days, we’re going to outline some of these big-ticket items so we can be as transparent as possible about what our recent rate changes are going toward.

To start off... for all of those who have seen the newly released theatrical version of Les Misérables and were curious about the sewers through which Jean Valjean carries a wounded Marius Pontmercy, let us explain a little about Philadelphia’s sewer system which bears some striking resemblance to those of mid-1800s Paris.

Our combined sewer system sends wastewater from the home into the same pipes as storm water from the rain. While the generations before us were doing the best they could with the information and resources they had at the time, it turns out that connecting the pipes that come from our drains and toilets to the same tunnels that carry the storm water can bring some problems. As little as a tenth of an inch of rain is enough to overwhelm our sewage treatment plants and cause overflows of storm water and raw sewage to spill into our waterways. So PWD is solving this with our state-of-the-art and yet fiscally conservative $2 billion Green City Clean Waters Plan. This is as little as a quarter of what other cities have planned on spending to fix the same kind of problem, but it will still add to our costs over the next several years.

Our goal is to use green infrastructure to keep storm water from ever reaching the sewer system, directing it instead where it naturally wants to go: back into the ground. “Green” infrastructure refers to street trees or planters, as opposed to “gray” infrastructure like pipes. By the time all of the Green City, Clean Waters infrastructure improvements are put in place, Philadelphia will have the nation’s greenest, most innovative and naturalistic solution for storm water management. It’s an investment that will pay off for our children, grandchildren and beyond.

Check out our Green City, Clean Waters Year in Review 
to see how far we’ve come already and learn more about where we’re going.

Have you noticed Green City, Clean Waters projects in your neighborhood?
Share with us at our Facebook page!