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Spotlight - Philadelphia: Envisioning A Green City, Clean Waters
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Imagine a city thriving with life — a place where residents are surrounded by trees and gardens on nearly every street block; a place where local streams are clean and abundant with fish; and where nearby parks provide respite for playing children. This is the vision supported by the Philadelphia Water Department’s Green City, Clean Waters plan. The agency wants to create a green legacy for future generations and unite the city with its waterways, while balancing ecology, economics and equity.
The PWD’s Green City, Clean Waters plan details how the city will transform this vision into a reality by investing approximately $2 billion over the next 25 years to improve the health of Philadelphia’s creeks and rivers, primarily through a land-based approach.
Land development has resulted in the replacement of once pervious areas with impervious (impenetrable) surfaces, such as roadways, parking lots and roofs. Impervious surfaces repel stormwater and prevent it from soaking into the ground.
For this reason, the PWD’s key to realizing the Green City, Clean Waters plan is redesigning our urban environment to manage rainfall as a resource, letting it soak into the ground (or into man-made structures that mimic natural processes) as close as possible to where those rain drops fall.
When stormwater does not seep into the ground, it tends to travel to a nearby storm drain. This journey is what we refer to as “stormwater runoff.” From the drain, it rushes through an underground system of pipes. There it can either blend in with sewage from our homes and businesses in a single pipe system (combined sewer system) or it can travel through a separate sewer system.
Our sewer system and treatment plants lack the capacity to convey and treat the enormous volume of stormwater runoff generated in Philadelphia. As a result, our combined sewers overflow into nearby creeks and rivers, discharging untreated sewage mixed with stormwater runoff.
Discharges from both combined and separate sewers contaminate our waterways, making it unsafe and difficult to recreate alongside of them. The volume and intensity of these discharges also wreaks havoc on the waterways themselves, causing streams to flood, banks to erode, and fish communities to be displaced.
Through Green City, Clean Waters, Philadelphia proposes to devote most of its resources toward green stormwater infrastructure (see definition) on the ground, where it will be visible and enjoyed by passersby.
The public investments outlined in Green City, Clean Waters will not only meet Philadelphia’s obligations under the Clean Water Act, but they will also provide many additional exciting, tangible benefits to the citizens of the city.
Outcomes associated with the cumulative impact of green stormwater infrastructure include multiple environmental, social and economic benefits. These include improved air quality, increased recreational opportunities and higher property values. This is especially true when compared to traditional underground infrastructure approaches common in other older cities.
In fact, a cost-benefit analysis conducted in support of the plan indicated that, in over 40 years, the city will realize approximately $2 in benefits for every $1 invested.
The Philadelphia Water Department’s Green City, Clean Waters plan offers a refreshing, holistic and environmentally-sensitive approach to managing stormwater runoff and to improving the health of our waterways. Indeed, this is a bold plan, and realization of its ambitious vision will require changes in behavior and understanding throughout city government and our community.
However, the PWD, with the support of its partners and the citizens of the city, believes this approach can lead Philadelphia toward being a model for urban sustainability in the 21st century.
For more information, visit the Green City, Clean Waters plan.
(By Tiffany Ledesma Groll, Consultant, on behalf of the Philadelphia Water Department, reprinted from Estuary News, Partnership for the Delaware Estuary.)
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5/30/2011 |
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