Addressing Philly’s stormwater issues

Today’s Philadelphia Inquirer included a Page 1 story about the city’s plans to deal with stormwater over the next two decades. Currently, whenever it rains, the volume overwhelms the city’s infrastructure, and both the storm runoff and untreated sewage flow straight into the Delaware, the Schuylkill and other creeks and rivers. A major culprit is impervious surface (such as sidewalks, rooftops, roads and parking lots, where water can’t enter the ground).

Temple wasn’t mentioned in the story, but this is an area  that faculty researchers are actively engaged in improving, locally and nationally. The  cover story of the current Temple Review — which arrived in homes in early September — is  about the  Civil and Environmental Engineering Department‘s work in this area. The article, “Physicians for the Planet,”  talks about the department’s development of new water treatment methods (such as using ultrasound to destroy minute contaminants) and the kinds of porous surfaces mentioned in the Inquirer article (one called PlastiSoil uses recycled plastic bottles to strengthen the ground beneath asphalt and pavement).

The Center for Sustainable Communities, which is part of the (newly named) School of Environmental Design, also is working on solutions and strategies for stormwater management. A story in the fall 2008 issue of the Temple Review (PDF), “Mapping out a Future We Can Live With” (page 24) talks about the CDC’s work in sustainable land use and floodplain mapping (FEMA adopted the maps Temple researchers generated).

Fantastic recent media coverage about changes in North Philly

Philadelphians have been seeing Temple’s name in the news a lot lately! On Sept. 8, the Daily News published “North to the future” about the “explosion of building activity that is changing the face of a section of the city once considered blighted and unsafe” — including The Edge on Main Campus and the new School of Medicine building at the Health Sciences Center. The reporter, Valerie Russ, says Temple’s place as an “anchor institution” has “driven much of the development — but not all of it.”

It’s true that the area has changed a lot over the past decade; today, more than 12,000 students live on or around Main Campus, and there’s activity day and night. The Pearl movie theater opened beside Main Campus a couple of years ago, and a Fresh Grocer is being built in the Progress Plaza across the street from it. Restaurants have been opening, two 7-11 stores are open 24 hours… Alumni who haven’t been back for a while should come just look around — it’s incredible.

The next day, The Philadelphia Inquirer ran “Temple president’s plan for the decade,” about President Ann Weaver Hart’s  plan to make Broad Street the focal point of Main Campus by 2020. The plan is ambitious: Build a new library on Broad Street and create a large green space in the center of campus. A follow-up  editorial and commentary each heralded the plan as great for Philadelphia.

A little-known fact about all this growth: Most of Temple’s building projects — the Tyler School of Art, Alter Hall, the Student Center — have been within its existing campus footprint. Most of the surrounding change — Avenue North, University Village, Progress Plaza — is private investment.