Bold Action to Protect Water Quality in Philadelphia and Beyond
Highlights of PennFuture’s 7th Annual Watershed Workshop
With a clear focus on Philadelphia’s remarkable new stormwater management program, including its relatively new stormwater management regulations for new/redeveloped projects as well as the revolutionary new stormwater fee rate program, PennFuture hosted a large audience at the Quaker Friends Center on Saturday April 17. The platinum LEED Friends Center is itself testament to “new wave” stormwater thinking, with its vegetated roof, rain gardens, and runoff cistern storage/toilet recycling of captured rainwater.
Speakers included an array of leaders from the Philadelphia Water Department, including Christine Marjoram who outlined the new stormwater regulatory program and Joanne Dahme who described the stormwater fee rate program. Dahme also detailed Philadephia’s unique Green Cities, Clean Waters effort to achieve dramatic progress in combined sewer overflow pollution reduction through “green infrastructure,” rather than the conventional gray structural systems. Senior Attorney Brian Glass chaired the event; Pennfuture’s Rachel Vassar closed the conference with a summary of Marcellus Shale issues and challenges.
StormwaterPA’s just-released video on Philadelphia’s Green City, Clean Waters program is receiving accolades. It’ll be available soon on our Volume Two DVD (learn more about Volume One here if you haven’t seen it yet), but you can check it out here now:
Green City, Clean Waters from GreenTreks Network on Vimeo.
