The Water Center at Penn and Penn Praxis are coleading the development of a comprehensive stormwater master plan for Pittsburgh. This plan will ultimately provide a global model using the P4 Framework of People, Planet, Place, and Performance to provide an innovative, equitable, inclusive, and sustainable blueprint to address one of our region’s most challenging problems.

For too long, aging infrastructure and the impacts of climate change have created challenges for stormwater management. The increasingly frequent and intense rain causes the combined sewer system to overflow into rivers and streams, flood streets, and cause property damage and health concerns when basements back up with raw sewage. 

By creating a new comprehensive stormwater management strategy that meets the current circumstances and needs of Pittsburgh, the Water Center/ PennPraxis team works collaboratively with PWSA, the City of Pittsburgh, and Pittsburgh residents to improve water quality, alleviate flooding, reduce basement backups, create jobs, and beautify neighborhoods for safer and more resilient communities.  

The creation of the stormwater master plan brings together past planning efforts and builds on the triple bottom line benefits established in the 2016 Citywide Green First Plan. Looking closely at the environmental, community, and economic benefits through the lens of the P4 Framework provides a holistic plan that considers how improved stormwater management can shape the economic and community development of Pittsburgh leading to greater inclusion and improved equity throughout the city.  

Additionally, the master plan will provide guidance for the short and long term, by identifying priorities and milestones to implement within the next five years including a proposed stormwater fee, pending consent decree with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and other regulatory mandates. It will also include a long-term outlook with milestones for the next 25 years that will help to consider the effects of climate change.  

Ellen Kohler

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The Water Center at Penn will support American Rivers and other project partners to identify and advocate for improvements to state and federal investment in water infrastructure in the Delaware River watershed for more green infrastructure and improved equity focusing on the State Revolving Fund programs.

Erica DePalma

The Water Center at Penn and Mayors Innovation Project will host and organize a New York-specific Water Affordability Academy. The Academy will provide city and utility leaders with the necessary foundation of water affordability-focused knowledge, as well as the tools and resources to get started on their path towards affordability.

• Establishing a cohort of New York cities focused on identifying one impediment to keeping water affordable. This cohort will launch after the Academy, as a natural next step in the implementation process

• Providing the necessary direct technical assistance to implement evidence-informed changes. This assistance will take place in parallel with the cohort

• Reporting out on these successes far and wide

Erica DePalma

The water quality in the Delaware River is considered suitable for swimming, except for a 27 mile stretch between Philadelphia, Camden, and Chester. This project will assemble and analyze existing data outlining current conditions and limiting factors to achieving a “swimmable” water quality, in coordination with key stakeholders including the Delaware River Basin Commission, Utilities, Environmental and Recreational Stakeholders, Regulatory Agencies, and others.  The Water Center and its partners will evaluate expected results of planned investments with the goal of predicting when and where water quality could support swimming as those committed projects are implemented.   The project will culminate in the development of a number of possible options for policymakers to consider for optimizing or accelerating improvements and improving access for communities along this urbanized stretch of the river. 

Ellen Kohler

Offerings students a unique opportunity to work in and with the historically under-resourced community of West Philadelphia to harness and synthesize arts, citizen science, and Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics (STEM) education. Students will engage in an extensive literature review, involving communication with university professors and local stakeholders to understand the urban and environmental history of the Cobbs Creek area. This effort will also create a constructive dialogue between the university and its surrounding community regarding environmental and economic justice. Through this project, The Water Center is working to enhance the overall ecosystem health of our shared neighborhood through a focus on water.

Erica DePalma

Collectively, Pennsylvania’s drinking, storm and wastewater infrastructure is in poor condition. Municipal leaders face a significant backlog of infrastructure maintenance challenges as well as new challenges due to an increasing number of large storm events, which result in flooding and water quality impacts. Although financing for water infrastructure improvement at low interest rates is available through PENNVEST, the US Department of Agriculture’s Rural Development programs and the US Department of Housing and Urban Development community block grants, these funding sources largely go unused. The goal of this project is to gain clarity about whether and how available resources can better address Pennsylvania’s water sector infrastructure challenges by analyzing one watershed, the Lehigh River Watershed.  The project team selected municipal water sector entities in a four county area of that watershed to understand whether there are existing policy hurdles to leveraging state revolving fund and other resources for financing much needed infrastructure improvements.

Karl Russek

Providing support to the mayor and city council of Duquesne, PA in identifying and pursuing the steps necessary to ensure a safe, sustainable water distribution system for a financially distressed, shrinking industrial city with severe fiscal and demographic challenges. Identifying key technical, governance and financial challenges, as well as potential sources of financial and technical assistance.  

Karl Russek

Support the development and implementation of the Drink Philly Tap project formed to empower residents of Philadelphia with information and knowledge to choose drinking tap water over bottled water.

Meg Kramer

Provide policy guidance and technical assistance on the principles of integrated water management (IWM) in three cities including in South Bend, Indiana, Toledo, Ohio, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with particular focus on how IWM can help create affordable access to water services.

Erica DePalma 

Explore innovative regional financing solutions designed to encourage new stormwater utilities (and associated fees) and identify novel approaches for bringing new financial resources to bear in the protection and restoration of Delaware River waterways. Create a tool kit of financing options for water policy and program managers to draw from and examine the case for considering regional models in watershed management. Propose four innovative financial mechanisms that to date have only been gently probed, but are worthy of much deeper feasibility analysis.

Alison De Luise

Produce a strategy document for the transformation of New Jersey’s Water Infrastructure, with the goal of opening a new dialogue with regional and national stakeholders on the costs, needs and approaches to solving New Jersey’s water infrastructure crisis.

Howard Neukrug