Volunteers hard at work planting trees.

TTF created the Wingohocking Tree Tenders in response to the declining tree population in Germantown and a growing demand for street trees. Trees contribute to clean water in our city by absorbing rainwater after it hits the ground. We educate residents on the benefits of trees in urban areas, plan and implement new tree plantings, and care for existing trees. This is a fun and exciting group of people who are focused on beautifying our community!

Thank you so much to the supporters of this effort: Bryner Chevrolet and Fill A Bagel of Jenkintown, High Point Cafe of Mount Airy, Awbury Arboretum, Habitat for Humanity, the Fairmount Organic Recycling Center of Philadelphia Parks & Recreation and the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society.

Watch volunteers spread mulch around the base of a newly planted tree and give it water.

Watch TTF Executive Director, Julie Slavet pound stakes!

See more photos from this event in this Flickr set.

Stephanie Clymer, TTF’s new AmeriCorps VISTA, and our Education and Outreach Coordinator Ashley Schmid pose with a watershed poster.

Reverend Chester Williams addresses the crowd.


The ribbon is finally cut!

To see all of our photos from the event, check out this Flickr set.

Below is a partial video from the event. In it, you’ll see TTF Executive Director Julie Slavet, part of Reverend William’s speech, and Philadelphia Water Department Commissioner Howard Neukrug’s remarks. Thanks again to all of the fabulous partners and community members who made this night a success!

In the meantime, take a look at this great article about the event on Mt. Airy Patch.

From the article:

It was a celebration at the corner of Clearview Street and East Washington Lane Wednesday evening.

Marlene Anderson, who lives on Clearview Street, said a park at the intersection by the Washington Lane SEPTA station used to be overgrown and generally felt neglected.

That was the case until the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society reclaimed the lot so that it could maintain the ground on the lot. That improved things.

But then the Tookany/Tacony-Frankford Watershed Partnership (TTF), which has its offices at Awbury Arboretum and works to “mobilize its communities” as stewards of the region’s watershed, according to its website, got involved as well. The community had requested that TTF work to be even more invested in the clean-up effort, so in the summer of 2010, it started to gather input from residents to see what could be done there.

The result was on display Wednesday. The Clearview Community Park has native flowers and grasses planted throughout its environs and is intended to be a place where neighborhood members can gather. There’s also hope that local schools will be able to use it as an outdoor classroom.

Read the whole thing here!

Volunteers with all of the recycling, trash and debris we pulled from the creek! See more pictures here.

This event was part of a larger effort between TTF, the Philadelphia Water Department and Philadelphia Parks & Recreation to restore the health and vitality of our stream corridors by  educating the public about how to keep our streams healthy, improving the physical characteristics of our streams and providing easy access to streamside trails and recreations spots.

We hope you will keep checking back for here more stream events!

PHILADELPHIA – The City of Philadelphia and Philadelphia Water Department (PWD) are ready to begin an exciting chapter of its Green City, Clean Waters Plan. On June 1, the PA Department of Environmental Protection (PADEP) and PWD will sign a groundbreaking agreement that will allow the PWD to officially embark on the implementation of its innovative strategy that uses green stormwater infrastructure to substantially reduce Combined Sewer Overflows (CSOs) to its waterways.

PWD submitted the plan to the US EPA and PADEP in September, 2009, after vetting the plan with an enthusiastic public. Green City, Clean Waters lays the groundwork for the PWD to spend approximately $2 billion over the next 25 years to use primarily green infrastructure, such as stormwater tree trenches, vegetated bumpouts, porous asphalt, rain gardens, sidewalk planters as a means to transform manmade surfaces that repel the rain to Greened Acres which capture rainwater runoff, which then infiltrates, stores and manage the rain as a precious resource — just like Mother Nature. The plan also includes wastewater treatment facility enhancements and pipe renewal and replacement. Green City, Clean Waters works in tandem with the Mayor’s Greenworks Philadelphia vision in order to reinvent Philadelphia as a green, sustainable city of the future.

“We are thrilled and grateful that the DEP has recognized the incredible environmental and public value of this plan and has worked with the City to embrace its vision,” said Mayor Michael Nutter. “As a sustainable approach to stormwater issues, Green City, Clean Waters upholds the tenets of GreenWorks Philadelphia and makes significant progress towards Philadelphia becoming the greenest city in the country.”

“Through the Green City, Clean Waters plan, we seek to achieve a host of tangible environmental, social and economic benefits for Philadelphians while improving the health of the City’s creeks, rivers and urban landscape,” added Water Commissioner Howard Neukrug. “That means not only cleaner water for our citizens, but cleaner air, a higher quality of life and meaningful jobs for future generations.”

PWD has softly launched the plan over the last few years to develop green infrastructure designs that work best in the Philadelphia landscape. These early projects serve as public demonstrations for citizens and provide the PWD and its many partners with early opportunities to monitor and improve the efficiencies of these practices.

A list of featured projects — and information on Green City, Clean Waters can be found at PWD’s website: www.phillywatersheds.org.

This is a fabulous movie but I get the sensation that it is an hour of the problem and a half hour of the solutions. But there is hope — never forget it! What can do you? Start in your own spaces by reducing the demand of water that the privately-owned companies are supplying. Use low-flow showerheads, turn off the faucet when you’re brushing or shaving, don’t water your lawn if your climate can’t support the grass, and be mindful of your water usage (like, don’t wash your car if it’s raining). Americans can easily use 25-30% less water than we do now. Know where you water comes from; know your watershed. Get involved with water issues in your community. Wash you car and water your plants and lawns with rain barrels (and consider that private companies have attempted to privatize rain water! collect it as long as you can!). Plant container gardens. Reduce your use of soaps and other products that pollute water sources. Reach out to your elected officials and let them know that you want safe water to be available to everyone, everywhere. Remember that when you look for life, you look for water. If there’s no water, there’s no life. Let’s keep what water we have in the system and use it wisely!

Buy the movie here:Blue Gold: World Water Wars

Budget Hearing
Tuesday, April 12, 2011 at 2 p.m.
Philadelphia City Hall, Room 400

Show City Council that YOU support work of the Philadelphia Water Department! If you want Philadelphia to be a green city with clean waters, please join us! Rally for stormwater management and the protection of our drinking water supplies! Thank you for your support.

There were rain barrels:

There were container gardens:

(This one is part of the Office of Community Development’s vacant lot transformation display, “From Blight to Bloom.”)

There were downspout planters:

(This is from the Philadelphia Water Department’s fantastic display, which featured a bunch of awesome stormwater management features.)

There was even porous pavement made from recycled plastic!

(This is part of Temple University Ambler’s “Ecolibrium” display, which incorporates sustainable design features. You can read a great article profiling this exhibit here.)

We are just thrilled to see stormwater management being incorporated into the Flower Show this way! You can see more pictures from the event in this Flickr set.

Residents of Roxborough, Manayunk, and East Falls have until Sunday to enter. Rules, photos of the contenders, and online entry forms are available at www.phillywatersheds.org/spokesdog.

A public vote will determine finalists. Judges will select the two winners – Roxborough and Manayunk will share a spokesdog, East Falls will get its own – based on “friendly nature, best canine smile, charm, and natural spokesdog abilities.”

And then, the city says, the spokesdogs will be required to attend at least three community events in 2011, at which information will be distributed on “living the eco-friendly dog life.”

What a cool idea! We hope that the TTF watershed will be the next area to hold a spokesdog contest! We would love our very own doggie ambassador!

Solving Runoff Block by Block from GreenTreks Network on Vimeo.