Delaware

Mayor Nutter swung by last week's Soak It Up! event in North Philly to commemorate the installation of stormwater tree trenches near 7th and Cumberland streets. The tree trenches are just one tool used to manage rain water and prevent sewer overflows into our rivers and streams. Check out our updated Green City, Clean Waters page for the complete story of how Philadelphia is using natural, green processes to solve the problem of combined sewer overflows.

 
Students from the nearby John F. Hartranft elementary school helped decorate the tree trenches with flower plantings.

There weren't just snacks. There were snacks and smoothies. 

East Falls—you're next. Join us on Thursday, April 5 at 4:30 at Queen Lane and Fox Street to dedicate the city's first stormwater bumpouts.

Join us tomorrow, Thursday March 8 at 4:30 p.m. at 16th and Jackson streets in South Philly for our second Soak It Up, Philly! event. The Philadelphia Water Department is celebrating its green stormwater infrastructure projects that absorb rain water and allow it to infiltrate into the ground instead of burdening our sewer system and polluting our rivers and streams. There will be free refreshments, art activities for all ages, flower bulb plantings and more. This event is rain or shine. Will it be almost 70 degrees tomorrow? Probably! Will there be a giant pair of scissors? We think so!

Join us tomorrow, Thursday March 1 in front of the Shissler Recreation Center at 4:30 for the premiere Soak It Up, Philly! event. Soak It Up Thursdays—happening throughout the city during March and April—are celebrations of the Philadelphia Water Department's efforts to reduce pollution entering our creeks and rivers by greening our city and beautifying our neighborhoods. It's all part of the 25-year Green City, Clean Waters plan to install green infrastructure that absorbs stormwater runoff. Come on out for free refreshments and a tour of the Big Green Block, a project that includes improvements and green infrastructure installation at the Shissler Rec Center and surrounding streets (Blair Street is pictured above). After the jump, some Soak It Up, Philly! facts:

Each week, we profile a BMP—short for Best Management Practices—to demonstrate how local businesses, organizations and neighbors are helping to keep our streams and rivers clean by managing stormwater on their property.

After the EPA remediated the site of a former tannery in Northern Liberties in the late 1980s, the Northern Liberties Neighbors Association turned the former brownfield into a park. Liberty Lands, as it is now known, completed its remarkable turnaround with the construction of a stormwater management project. A rain garden detention pond collects runoff from the site and an adjacent street, filtering it through a stone bed and delivering it to a series of three in-ground cisterns. An irrigation system pumps water from the cisterns to irrigate trees and grass at the park. Maintaining the grass cover at the sloped site helps reduce erosion problems.

Learn more about this stormwater BMP project, find it on a map and view photos at  the Temple-Villanova Sustainable Stormwater Initiative project page.