Infill Philadelphia: Soak it Up!

“It’s about the water… but it’s not only about the water.”

In the aftermath of events like Hurricane Sandy, the public is more conscious of the devastating effects that stormwater can have on our communities.  But to paraphrase one of the presenters at the Infill Philadelphia:  Soak It Up! stormwater design competition last week:  stormwater is a problem; rainwater is an opportunity.

The nine finalists illustrated a number of innovative and elegant solutions that turn the problem of urban stormwater into an opportunity.  By integrating stormwater control infrastructure into the existing community fabric of three disparate settings – industrial, commercial, and neighborhood – these talented designers showed the way for others to follow as Philadelphia makes the transition from a city with a stormwater problem to a green city with clean waters.

The Philadelphia Water Department’s Green City, Clean Waters 25-year plan for a sustainable future includes streets, schools, parks, parking, and much more than just the water. 

Visit this website to read the plan:  http://www.phillywatersheds.org/what_were_doing/documents_and_data/cso_long_term_control_plan   

And watch the video channel here:  http://vimeo.com/channels/greencity

As a member of the awards jury, I was impressed by the designers' creativity in incorporating unique site elements into their designs.  For example, one team built trellis supports with the metal mesh produced by the owner of the industrial warehouse.

Congratulations to the winners:

Industrial: Warehouse Watershed | Leveraging Water + Plants in Zero Lot Sites

Roofmeadow, In Posse, m2 Architecture, Meliora Environmental Design, SED Design, Sere Ltd

Commercial: Retail Retrofit| Stormwater reStore

Urban Engineers, Mathews Nielsen Landscape Architects, Spiezle Architectural Group

Neighborhood: Greening the Grid | Meeting Green

OLIN, Gilmore & Associates, International Consultants, MM Partners, Penn Praxis, SMP Architects

Want to see the winning presentations in person?  You’re in luck:  they will be presenting again at the Academy of Natural Sciences on March 21^st.  Click here for details.

Event partners and sponsors included CH2M Hill, City of Philadelphia Mayor’s Office of Sustainability, Community Design Collaborative, EPA Region 3, McCormick & Taylor, Michael Baker Corporation, Philadelphia Water Department, and Urban Engineers.

Where plastic ends up

This week, NPR played a report from The Story about plastic trash in the ocean.  You can listen to it here:
http://thestory.org/archive/the_story_082112_full_show.mp3/view

U.S. drought continues to spread

Official news via US Department of Agriculture:
http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/usda/usdahome?navid=DISASTER_ASSISTANCE&parentnav=DISASTER_SAFETY 

and NOAA http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/drought/

Trashing Baltimore's Inner Harbor

Anybody ever wonder what became of the water wheel trash collector at Baltimore's Inner Harbor?  Me too:  here's the scoop...
http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/features/green/2011/09/trash_collector_trashed.html

Waterwise options for your bathroom

I think I want a new shower head. (why now? just kidding... sortof)

EPA specifications for watersense shower heads state that they should use less than 2 gallons per minute (gpm) at 80 pounds per square inch (psi) of water pressure.


Here are links to a hand shower with decent ratings from Home Depot customers, or a more traditional shower head.

While we're on the topic of saving water in the bathroom, here are some easy, low-cost things you can do:

Fill up an old water bottle (free) and put it in your toilet tank to decrease the gallons per flush (1.6 gpf is the current standard)

Install an aerator ($5) in your sink faucet to get 1.5gpm. Basically, an aerator introduces air into the water flow to make it feel stronger. Laminar flow devices employ a different concept, but also save water (here's a random thread about laminar vs. turbulent flow in the kitchen sink... but I digress.)

Get drain strainers ($2-3) for sink and shower drains to eliminate hair clogs so you won't need to use Drano or other nasty chemicals to unblock them later. An ounce of prevention, as they say...

Resources:
EPA's watersense site
Home Depot's water wise page and Eco Options site
Sierra Club green home page
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How to save water

How do YOU save water? EPA's Pick5 blog has some ideas...

http://blog.epa.gov/blog/2009/09/11/how-do-you-use-less-water/

Here are some things I do...

Don't buy bottled water: one of my company's offices saved over $1000 and 6000 gallons by switching to filtered water, not to mention reduced greenhouse gas emissions from not trucking all those heavy bottles around.

Don't run water while shaving, scrubbing, brushing teeth, washing dishes, etc. Also shower less often (think like a European!).

Recycle water from rinsing or cooking produce to water your plants: added nutrients!

Use a rain barrel for watering the garden. I also use a soaker hose buried at root level with a layer of mulch. Watering in the morning reduces evaporation.

What could you do to conserve water in your life?

Gimme five, Brita!

I'm a heavy drinker... of water, that is. Lately I've noticed that Brita and Pur have been marketing water filters as a way to save money (bottled water is expensive) and the environment (processing and shipping bottled water emits unnecessary carbon dioxide). I'm a fan of both ideas. But what do you do with the filters when they're used up? Recycle 'em.

Brita has launched a filter recycling program with the Preserve Gimme 5 program, which collects #5 plastics at Whole Foods stores across the USA (unfortunately, none yet in Maryland). There are also links to join the Filter For Good program by pledging to reduce bottled water waste, and the Brita Climate Ride for bicyclists.

I was disappointed to see that Pur doesn't mention any filter recycling options on their website.

So until our local Whole Foods stores start collecting Brita filters for this program, you can mail them to the program in Cortland, NY, using ground shipping... or stockpile them at home and wait. Pur users: go write some letters!
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What's that thing in your yard?

At the Saturday Ecofestival during Baltimore Green Week, I built a rain barrel. On the way out of the festival, and here in my neighborhood, everybody has been wanting to know, “what is that?”

A rain barrel is one of the easiest things you can do to make your house greener. Once placed under a downspout, it collects all the rainwater from your roof that would normally be routed into storm drains. A spigot at the base of the rain barrel attaches to a garden hose so that you can water your garden, wash your car, or do whatever you wish with this water reclaimed from the sky.

Impervious area = bad

By collecting rainwater to use in your yard, you can lessen the load on storm drains and local waterways. Think about the typical path of this rainwater: it falls from the sky, travels across your roof, down your gutter, across impervious concrete drains or sidewalks and streets, then finally into a storm drain. Along the concrete sidewalk/street part at least, this water can pick up chemical pollutants that are carried with it all the way to the Chesapeake Bay. It’s much better for the local watershed to receive this water after it has been filtered by your garden plants and soil, which release the water gradually to the subterranean groundwater supply, rather than in a dirty torrent after a rainstorm.

How much impervious surface area is there in your neighborhood? A quick study of my own middle-of-group townhouse showed that 49% of my property is impervious (rooftop/sidewalk/deck/porch), i.e. creates runoff that often travels into a storm drain rather than soaking into the soil naturally.

Reduced water consumption = good

Did you know that residential watering can account for 40% of domestic water consumption in a given area? Using water from a rain barrel can save you up to 1,300 gallons of water during peak summer months: definitely a plus in times of drought and water restriction. Plus, the water you collect from your rooftop is free of chlorine, fluoride, and other substances found in treated public water that your garden plants don’t need.

It’s cheap

Rain barrels can run upwards of $100 for fancy models from local garden stores. However, you can build a rain barrel for as little as $50 at a workshop sponsored by the Herring Run Watershed Association, which is what I did. In my case, I even customized the barrel for my home: the bottom spigot is at the front for easy access, and I located the overflow hose on the left side so that it can run into my existing drain.

It requires little maintenance

To set up your rain barrel, you’ll need a hacksaw to trim your downspout to the proper length, and a few cement blocks on which to set the barrel for better water pressure.

After installation, you simply keep the intake basket free of leaves, twigs, and other debris so that water can flow in freely. The screen on the basket is important for preventing mosquitoes from taking up residence in your water.

If you have a large roof, your barrel may fill faster than you can use the water. For this reason, there is an overflow opening near the top of each barrel, attached to a flexible hose. This hose can be routed down to a drainage area, or connected to a second rain barrel: you can connect as many rain barrels as you like in this manner.

For more information on building your own rain barrel, check out the Rain Barrel roll-out on May 15^th at http://www.herringrun.org/

See here for more info about rain barrels, including how to make your own from scratch: http://www.dnr.state.md.us/ed/rainbarrel.html Md Environmental Design Program

HGTV’s Gardening by theYard rain barrel how-to: http://www.hgtv.com/hgtv/gardening/article/0,,HGTV_3546_2165903,00.html

Read about rain collection going glam here: http://www.inhabitat.com/2008/05/07/rainpod-water-collection-system/