We missed this one from a while back: Glen Abrams, PWD's Manager of Policy and Strategic Initiatives, appeared on Comcast's Newsmakers program to talk about Green City, Clean Waters:

Mill Creek Sewer between 47th and Haverford

As you walk on many of Philadelphia's sidewalks, beneath your feet is a hidden world of streams that once crisscrossed the city. Join PWD historian Adam Levine on Thursday, Feb. 16 from 6:30 - 8:30 p.m. at the Temple Gallery at the Tyler School of Art for a fascinating illustrated lecture including rare artwork and artifacts that uncover part of Philadelphia's history few people ever think about—the drastic changes made in the city's landscape since its founding in 1682.

Levine has been digging into the history of the city's sewers and drainage systems since 1998, and his talk will focus on the systematic obliteration of hundreds of miles of surface streams. Buried deep underground in pipes as large as 20 feet in diameter, these former streams became main drainage arteries in the city's 3,000-mile sewer system. These massive alterations to the landscape have had environmental repercussions that are still being felt today. This lecture is guaranteed to reveal a side of Philadelphia you have never seen and change the way you think about our sprawling urban environment.

This event is free, but you must register to reserve your seat.

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.