Talking About the Wissahickon's Health at Meeting

Several hundred people converged in the auditorium at Springside Chestnut Hill Academy Thursday at a town meeting dedicated to the health of Wissahickon Creek.

Co-sponsored by Wissahickon Valley Watershed Association (WVWA), Springside, and Friends of the Wissahickon (FOW), the event was called “Creek in Crisis?”—and the conclusion experts are drawing is that it is in fact facing significant threats.

Local efforts to improve water quality in Wissahickon Creek have been an ongoing project of FOW, according to John Rollins, who is the president of the board of the non-profit. Projects include a $10 million sustainable trails initiative designed to reduce stormwater runoff and erosion, and an easement program to preserve open space in the area surrounding the creek.

The keen interest of people living in Northwest Philadelphia was reflected in the robust attendance at Thursday’s event and in the participation of 600 volunteers contributing over 8,000 hours last year to preserve and restore the Wissahickon Valley section of Fairmont Park, said Rollins.

“it’s terrific to see such a crowd come out to fight for the quality of the water in the Wissahickon,” said WVWA Director Steve Brown.

Patrick Starr, who is executive vice-president of the Pennsylvania Environmental Council, said he indeed thinks the Wissahickon is involved in a crisis. He explained that the Delaware River Water Basin provides water for some two million users, including all of New York City and Philadelphia, and that the Wissahickon Valley Watershed is part of that.

Part of the trouble with keeping water clean and the surrounding ecosystems healthy is that regulation and water management is often not consistent as water crosses state and township lines. “Rivers don’t respect political boundaries,” says Carol Collier, the executive director of the Delaware River Basin Commission.

Collier herself lives in the Ambler section of the Wissahickon Valley Watershed, but the DVBC is a regional body with gubernatorial representation from Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York. Established by President Kennedy in 1961, the DVBC was created to oversee a unified approach to managing a river system without regard to political boundaries.

Changes in weather patterns and global warming have resulted in more flooding and have created a need for better stormwater management, explained Collier. “There are no such things as averages when talking about water,” she said. “There is either too much or too little.”

Data shows that Southeastern Pennsylvania is experiencing more intense storms in spring and winter, and is drier in the summer than it has been previously, and temperatures are increasing. “Things will get worse,” Collier warned, “and we must plan for it.” 

Chris Crockett, the deputy commissioner of Planning and Environmental Services at the Philadelphia Water Department, agreed. In addition to stormwater management, there is a need to address the introduction of pharmaceutical and personal care products into the water supply, he said.

“We can’t engineer our way out of everything,” he cautioned. “These substances are not removed by waterwater plants, and we don’t know what they do.”

Residents are advised not to dispose of drugs by flushing them down sinks or toilets, but to instead bring them to the next National Prescription Drug Take-Back Day on April 28. Collection sites are listed on the DEA website here.

Drinking water in Philadelphia is drawn from the two largest rivers in the area, the Schuykill and the Delaware, and the Philadelphia Water Department serves 1.45 million people. As early as 1801, Philadelphia became the first in the world to supply the entire city with drinking water.

So how impaired is the Wissahickon, which feeds directly into the Schuykill? Dr. John Jackson, an entymologist senior research scientist with the Stroud Water Research Center, rates it “poor” based on its macroinvertabrate score. Jackson said that the presence of three types of flies (mayflies, stoneflies, and caddisflies) are an indication of “whether it’s a clean stream or a dirty stream.”

The Wissahickon is impaired, Johnson said, primarily because it is “an urbanized watershed surrounded by urbanized watersheds.” Sixty-nine percent of the Wissahickon watershed is developed, and 95 percent of “streamwater” in the creek is actually treated wastewater, testing very high for phosphorous and nitrates.

Still, Jackson gave the audience a hopeful message.

“People are the source of the stress, and people are the solution,” he told them. “Impaired or polluted doesn’t mean dead.”