PennEnvironment Research & Policy Center’s newest report, Sewage Pollution in the Philadelphia-Camden region is now available HERE. Our study shows that the Philadelphia Water Department (PWD) averages dumping 12.6 billion gallons of untreated sewage and stormwater into Philadelphia’s rivers and streams each year.
Other findings from our report showed that PWD’s sewer system averaged 65 sewage overflows a year, making the city’s rivers and streams unsafe for human contact up to 195 days out of the year.
To publicize our findings, the PennEnvironment Research & Policy Center held a news conference about the report along the banks of the Schuylkill River. We were joined by Philadelphia City Council member Jamie Gauthier, Tim Dillingham from the American Littoral Society, and President of the Friends of the Schuylkill Navy and lifelong rower, Margaret Meigs.
We also created an interactive map that shows which sewage pipes dump the most sewage and which neighborhoods across the city they’re located in.
Our report’s release was met with incredible coverage by TV, radio and newspapers across the Philadelphia region, including stories in the Philadelphia Inquirer, Inside Climate News, PhillyVoice, the Daily Caller, CBS News, and more.
As you can see, the report release was a huge success. We plan to continue to use this resource to build support for safe and clean water in Philadelphia’s rivers and across Pennsylvania. To ensure that Philadelphians have water that’s clean enough to fish, boat, and float in, the PennEnvironment Research & Policy Center is calling on PWD to dramatically ramp up its investments in infrastructure that will reduce sewage overflows. We’re also calling on upstream suburban communities that contribute to the city’s wastewater volume to take strong actions to reduce their pollution, and for all levels of government to ramp up financial resources to stop this sewage pollution. If you’d like to support this effort, you can add your name to our online petition HERE.
Lastly, we also held a webinar about the sewage pollution that plagues the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers, and how we can stop it. You can watch the webinar HERE, and if you want to help us get the word out about this pressing issue, share it with friends and family that love Philly’s rivers and streams as much as we do.
The report wouldn’t have been made possible without the ongoing support and involvement of concerned Pennsylvanians like you, so thank you for helping to make PennEnvironment’s efforts to advocate for clean water possible!