Clean Rivers Campaign Hosts Highly Successful Pittsburgh City Council Hearing

By Tom Hoffman, Western Pennsylvania Director and Sarah Peterson, Nine Mile Run Watershed Association In Pittsburgh, Clean Water Action is one of the key members of the Clean Rivers Campaign fighting to ensure that the investments we will make to fix our combined sewer overflow problem will give our communities the most benefits possible. On November 18th, the Clean Rivers Campaign testified in front of Pittsburgh City Council in a Post-Agenda hearing. CRC supporters filled every seat in the City Council chambers. They listened as experts from local and national organizations explained how families, workers, and the environment can benefit from Pittsburgh’s largest-ever public investment to stop water pollution while solving multiple community needs at the same time through the use of large-scale green infrastructure. The panel included George Hawkins, the General Manager of DC Water, Karen Abrams from the URA, Robert McCulloch National Director of Infrastructure Programs from the Blue Green Alliance, Jim Good, Interim Director of PWSA, Anne Thomas, Engineer and EPA Consultant with Tetra Tech, Heather Sage of the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy, and Jennifer Rafanan Kennedy, Director of the Clean Rivers Campaign. Rafanan Kennedy, the director of the CRC said, “We all want to live in a clean, vibrant Pittsburgh with good jobs and healthy neighborhoods and we have the opportunity to invest in that future now.” Rafanan Kennedy spoke about the importance and urgency of changing our region’s sewer infrastructure investment and added, “It’s our responsibility to ensure that public investments in infrastructure create economic opportunities and healthy communities for generations to come”. Jim Good, Interim Executive Director of Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority (PWSA), spoke of the green infrastructure study that PWSA will conduct and the investments they have planned. Good stated their goal is, “3 rivers for 365 days”. He emphasized the need to protect our drinking water and to make it fishable and swimmable year-round. Robert McCulloch, Director of Infrastructure Programs at the Blue Green Alliance, told how Philadelphia has created 8,000 jobs with the green infrastructure that has been implemented George Hawkins, General Manager of DC Water, explained how he has managed the consent decree in DC and how he hopes to utilize green infrastructure to mitigate runoff. Hawkins praised Pittsburgh, the partnerships we have, and the progress we have already made. Listing 11 questions that cities with combined sewer overflows face, Hawkins explained that green infrastructure can solve every one. The list included water quality issues, air quality issues, climate change, revitalizing urban neighborhoods, supporting job creation and maintenance, supporting local businesses, connecting to customers better, and justifying rates as people will spend money on what they believe in and can see in their neighborhoods. Hawkins ended by saying, “The DC combined sewer system was built in 1890. They still use that system. The infrastructure investments we make today are the decisions we’re going to make for people not yet born” he continued with, “Pittsburgh is at the plate, and I just hope you hit it out of the ballpark, which is so possible”. The packed City Council chambers responded to Hawkins with unanimous applause. After the hearing, George Hawkins visited the Editorial Board of the Post Gazette which resulted in this great editorial.