The empty playground at the corner of Penn and Sayford streets will get new play equipment and storm water management systems as part of Capital Region Water’s City Beautiful H20 program.
Capital Region Water (CRW) will renovate four public playgrounds and one city street next spring, continuing its effort to beautify Harrisburg while alleviating strain on its aging sewer system.
CRW is currently accepting contractor bids for the projects and hopes to break ground in spring 2018. Both are considered early-action items in CRW’s City Beautiful H20 campaign, which aims to use green landscape architecture to reduce storm water runoff into city sewers.
The playground renovation project will outfit four city playgrounds with rain gardens, drainage structures and catch basins. The playgrounds, which are located at Penn and Sayford streets, Royal Terrace, Norwood and Holly streets, and Cloverly Heights, will also receive new equipment.
CRW’s work on the playgrounds will be in partnership with the City of Harrisburg. Renovations and equipment will be funded by $775,000 in grant money from the state Department of Community and Economic Development, the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources and Impact Harrisburg. CRW will contribute $250,000 to finance the storm water management systems.
The second project will turn vacant lots into rain gardens and create community gathering spaces on Bailey Street in Harrisburg’s Summit Terrace neighborhood. The $400,000 undertaking be funded by CRW ratepayer money.
Claire Mulhardt, project manager at CRW, said that the neighborhood was an ideal location to pilot storm water projects. Its entire sewage system was replaced in 2016 after years of deferred maintenance, and Mulhardt believes it can be a case study for sustainable storm water management solutions.
Storm water refers to any water from precipitation or snow melt that enters the city’s sewers through storm drains. Like many old cities, Harrisburg has a combined sewer system, or CSO, where the storm drains connect to same sewer system as toilets and showers.
When it’s not raining, all the contents of the sewer system flow to a treatment plant on Cameron Street, where they are cleaned and then discharged into the Susquehanna River. But heavy rain can cause the system to overflow, sending untreated water into the river and Paxton Creek.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency alleged in a 2015 lawsuit that levels of runoff in Harrisburg violated the Clean Water Act and PA Clean Streams Law. After a year of negotiations, the EPA agreed to spare the city financial penalties, as long as CRW agreed to update of its long-term plan for the city’s sewer system.
City Beautiful H20 is the first step of that long-term plan. It uses green space as a storm water management technique, since greenery can absorb storm water during a deluge and slow its flow into the sewer system. It can also divert water away from sewers by encouraging infiltration into the earth’s subgrade.
Mulhardt said that green spaces are also appealing to city residents, whose input is essential to sustain projects.
“We want to come up with solutions that people want in their neighborhoods,” Mulhardt said. “These won’t be successful if we plop something into the ground but nobody in the neighborhood has been part of the process.”
CRW hosted public meetings and launched a “Community Ambassadors Program” to solicit public feedback throughout the City Beautiful H20 planning process.
Brian Humphrey represented the Summit Terrace neighborhood in the Community Ambassadors Program. He traveled with CRW to Lancaster and Philadelphia to see storm water management systems at work, which helped him see the potential to implement similar fixes at home.
“I explained to my community how storm water management worked in other places, and we figured we could use our open space to make a rain garden,” Humphreys said.
He added that his neighborhood association also will partner with CRW to make a pre-existing community garden a storm water runoff area.
CRW also recently installed new combined sewer overflow warning signs to comply with EPA orders. The signs, located City Island boat launch, and along the riverfront at Tuscarora Street, Hamilton Street, and Lewis Street, alert the public to avoid contact with water nearby or downstream due to high levels of pollutant runoff during storms.
Author: Lizzy Hardison
