North end of the park where water collection will start

Back in February I attended a meeting on what I thought would be of little interest to me.  I like water but I wasn’t all that interested in watersheds.  It turned out to be one of the more interesting ideas I’ve encountered this year.

The plan to build the rain garden at Womrath Park is moving forward with construction likely to begin in the Spring of 2012.  Unfortunately it will close off the park for a significant time but the end result will be worth it.

We took a walk through with the water folks (Ashley Schmid and Valessa Souter-Kline) on Wednesday and the picture of what will emerge became a lot clearer.   Water will be collected starting at the high end of the park and end up in a water garden at the lower end.  This is how it sounds in Water Department language:

“Located one block north of Frankford Creek adjacent to the Market-Frankford El in a busy commercial district, Womrath Park presents a unique opportunity to demonstrate green stormwater infrastructure in a dense urban setting. Four modified curbside inlets will intercept stormwater from a 80,000 SF catchment area into a series of pipes and vegetated swales that convey the flow to a 3000 SF rain garden at the southern end of the site. Planted with native grasses, perennials, trees and shrubs, the rain garden will absorb and filter stormwater alleviating pressure on Philadelphia’s combined sewer system. Existing park benches and tables are well positioned to view and observe the rain garden, and new signage will educate and inform park users on the important role of this green stormwater infrastructure.”

South end of the park where the rain garden will be located

That is kind of how nature cleans up water, now Philadelphia is catching up and trying to use that plan.  It will save a fortune in building additional sewer treatment facilities of the next 25 years.  Seems like a good deal.

You can see a short video here with a better explanation than I give here of what is going to be happening.  Here is a summary of some of the details in a handout.

Lots of exciting things going on here in Frankford.

The commercial building 4201 Frankford Ave is up for sale via Coldwell Bankers.  It sits across from Womrath Park at the intersection with Womrath Street.

And it’s second floor apartment looks spectacular.

Those look like stainless steel appliances.

The living room has crown molded ceilings.  I so want that.  Check out the realtor’s description:

Don’t judge a book by its cover. Completely gutted and renovated 2009. Interior designed and modeled after apartments in Barclay on Rittenhouse Square. This space is unbelievable. Features include: Crawford ceiling on first floor, 10 and 12 ft ceilings, crown molding, Herringbone hardwood flooring throughout, exposed brick, gas fireplace, New full bath 6 ft soak tub with glass surround, powder room, exquisite kitchen with double sink, stainless steel appliances with island, plenty of closets, window seat and built ins for storage, laundry room, rear deck, rear yard. Other pluses: A Park View, all replacement windows, steel exterior doors, (+-50 year) rubber roof, corion-granite-red mahogany island counter top, all new plumbing and electric throughout, full basement. This property is great for a business person who wants to conduct business on the first floor and live upstairs or as investment with separate tenants. The first floor has steel security shutters.

I’d like to find out how something like that gets done in Frankford.

[link] 4201 Frankford Ave at Coldwell Banker

I went to the “neighborhood meeting” at the Community Academy of Philadelphia on Erie Avenue to find out about the proposed changes to Womrath Park.  I thought I had heard enough about it but I wanted to see if there was anything else to be discovered.  Yes the Community Academy of Philadelphia is not in the community but the folks who sponsored the meeting were not aware of the many venues they could have used instead.  We will forgive them that one slip up.

Note the title of this post refers to a rain garden and the meeting made a good case that this is an apt description of what will be done to the park.  The video below is a good primer on the problem facing Philadelphia in regard to the rain water issue.  Rain comes and can overwhelm the sewage treatment facility.  That leads to pollution of the rivers and streams where raw sewage can be dumped in such a situation.  The solution is to clean the storm water outside of the sewage treatment system, sort of the way nature does if left to its own devices. Have a look at the video below.

Philadelphia has chosen this path and Womrath park is a natural place to implement a small scale project due to its proximity to the Frankford Creek.

Here is a site plan of the park.  You can see the major changes will be to the south end.

And here you can see the details of what will be happening down at that end. We’ll post more news when it comes along.

Big meeting coming up to find out about this plan which is the first of its kind in the city.  The idea is that the city wants to divert rainwater which now flows into the sewer system back to the earth where it belongs.  Nature has been thwarted in the city because of the paving over of the ground.  This idea would redirect the flow back into the ground and save the water treatment system from handling what is really clean water already.

Come to the meeting and get the details.

The Philadelphia Water Department (PWD) plans to install a stormwater
management demonstration project at Womrath Park in Frankford (Frankford and
Kensington Avenues).  The plan for installation in Spring 2012 is not final and PWD wants comments
from you and your neighbors on the design.

PWD¹s Green City Clean Waters program is designed to use natural systems to
capture stormwater reclaiming it as a resource while reducing harmful
combined sewer overflows to our streams. Collecting the stormwater will help
grass and trees stay healthy and provide a model for projects that help
prevent the sewers from overflowing into our rivers and streams. The main
changes you would notice in the park are new native plants, small
stonewalls, some changes to the pathways and new mounds and depressions in
the landscape (essentially creating a series of rain gardens that will
beautify the park while collecting stormwater before it flows into the
sewers).

Womrath Park was identified as a priority public site for renewal under the
Frankford Creek Greenway Plan, an earlier planning process led by PWD.

Meeting Details:

Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Community Academy of Philadelphia
1100 E. Erie Avenue
Philadelphia, PA 19124
6:00 PM to 8:00 PM

www.phillywatersheds.org/womrathpark

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