Magazine

Although largely invisible, water infrastructure — the pipes and drains that do everything from providing drinking water to preventing flooding — is vast, aging and fully integrated in every city’s whole ecosystem. In one of the more forward-thinking attempts to rethink stormwater infrastructure, the Philadelphia Water Department Office of Watersheds produced a comprehensive 20-year plan called “Green City Clean Waters.” The plan creates “a green legacy for future generations” and extends the department’s role surprisingly far beyond street drains and sewer lines. Its tenets include reusing stormwater rather than merely piping it away from households, transforming rivers and streams into viable recreation areas, and creating a new green infrastructure of green roofs, tree canopies and rain gardens. Howard Neukrug, director of the Office of Watersheds, talked with Next American City about the advantages that a sustainable watershed can bring to Philadelphia.