Philadelphia Water Dept. refutes report claiming stormwater management system is overwhelmed by climate change

PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The median on American Street in Kensington is a small wonder — a swath of green amid the concrete, asphalt and traffic in the densely urban neighborhood. It was planted to capture rainwater as part of the Philadelphia Water Department ’s Green City, Clean Waters , a 25-year plan to reduce 85% of storm-related pollution in the city’s waterways .

It was a cutting-edge strategy when it was introduced in 2011 and quickly caught on nationally, winning awards from the Clean Water America Alliance and the American Planning Association, among others, for its multiple benefits. In addition to soaking up stormwater , the trees and plants improved the environment and beautified neighborhoods.

So it was a disappointment for the department this summer when a group of environmentalists released a report, titled “Unraveling the Facts,” that criticized the plan as too slow, too limited and overwhelmed by climate change .

“The situation is, in fact, getting worse,” said environmental consultant Nick Pagon in a recent interview, citing Philadelphia Water Department (PWD) data that shows an average of 14 billion gallons of stormwater and sewage flowing into rivers and creeks, compared to the 2006 baseline of 13 billion gallons.

PWD pushed back this month in a point-by-point rebuttal on its website , where it disputed the use of the 14 billion gallon figure and even using the 2006 baseline, arguing rainfall varies from 30 to 60 inches annually in the city and much longer timelines are needed to accurately measure how the program is doing.

“It’s good to see the interest and an engaged public around this,” said Kelly Anderson, PWD director of watersheds. “We just feel that the science, engineering facts and data need to be applied.”

Pagon dismissed the rebuttal as “misdirection.”

“They don’t actually contradict any of the facts that we laid out in ‘Unraveling the Facts.’ In fact, they confirm virtually all of them,” he said.

Anderson disagrees. She argues that part of the beauty of Green City, Clean Waters (GCCW) is that it is designed to be flexible, and the report ignores the fact that PWD has adapted the plan to cope with climate change, adding more traditional gray infrastructure.

“It’s not just a green approach that the city is taking,” Anderson said. “We have a number of very important, priority gray infrastructure projects that are happening — pump stations being designed along the Schuylkill, upgrades to our wastewater treatment plants — that are going to be able to handle the capacity of the flows we see coming off our watershed.”

GCCW was adopted to comply with both federal and state regulations on clean water and sewer overflow. The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection monitors PWD’s compliance with the terms of a Consent Order and Agreement (CO&A) approved in 2012.

The state Department of Environmental Protection said in a statement, “PWD continues to meet their obligations under these programs. … There are benchmark performance standards outlined in five-year intervals, with the next at Year 15 of the program in 2026. Throughout the implementation process, PWD has continued to develop and refine their approach to meet each CO&A Performance Standard.”

PWD said it has already reduced overflows by 3 million gallons and that amount will continue to grow as more work is done.

That does not satisfy Tim Dillingham, executive director of the conservation organization Littoral Society, which led the “Unraveling the Facts” report. He thinks the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers should be clean enough to swim in.

“At the end of their effort, there will still be 5 billion gallons of raw sewage going into the waters, so it doesn’t even resolve the problem of polluting our waters to where we can’t use them,” Dillingham said.

He said other cities have achieved the goal of swimmable rivers, notably Paris, which spent 1.5 billion euros to get the Seine ready for the summer Olympics.

PWD officials noted that their projects are financed by ratepayers in the poorest large city in the country, though it has also received federal grants and loans. And, sewer overflows are not the Environmental Protection Agency ’s only mandates. In the last year, PWD has been ordered to eliminate lead service lines and remove PFAS , or forever chemicals, from drinking water . Officials also noted that the Philadelphia portions of the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers are at the bottom of miles of upstream uses, impacting water quality, over which it has no control.

PWD’s official policy on swimming in the rivers is that it is not recommended, not just because of sewer overflows but, its website says, “Safety risks include strong currents, deep water, and submerged obstacles that can cause potentially fatal injuries and drowning. PWD supports recreational activities such as fishing and boating.”

The criticism of GCCW escalated this month when Councilmember Mark Squilla introduced a resolution “calling on PWD to use projected climate rainfall information to prioritize actions to fix raw sewage overflows and urging PWD to use real-world climate-related rainfall data to project the impacts of their GCCW plans.”

The resolution questioned why there are dry weather discharges, whether PWD is doing enough to tap state and federal infrastructure money, and why PWD doesn’t use netting on its outfalls to keep litter and other pollutants from getting into the rivers.

The resolution said City Council is willing to work with PWD on these issues. PWD officials said they are anxious to meet with Squilla so they can make clear what they are already doing.

Spokesperson Brian Rademaekers said PWD tried netting but it was not effective, and the department uses other tools. He noted that PWD has received $1 billion in federal money but much of it was financing that must be paid back.

As for dry weather discharges, which can occur when there are leaks in the sewer system, Rademaekers pointed to a memo PWD sent Squilla last year that lays out the monitoring systems used to minimize the discharges. It also notes that the CO&A commits PWD to relining 14.5 miles of sewer segments to eliminate leaks by 2026 and that, as of June 2022, more than 9 miles were completed with 2.5 more in the works.

Most importantly, Anderson wants to stress that PWD “builds climate change into every piece of infrastructure it puts in the ground.”

“We get drinking water from these rivers, so it’s a priority for us to ensure that our stormwater, wastewater and drinking water systems are all designed to be resilient in the face of a changing climate,” she said.