Tookany/Tacony-Frankford Watershed turning green with infrastructure

Thanks to a $58,000 EPA grant, the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society (PHS) will help implement 10 new green infrastructure projects to the Tookany/Tacony-Frankford Watershed aimed at improving water quality, controlling stormwater, and restoring watershed ecology.

The EPA announced the Urban Waters grant on Wednesday at an event held behind Friends Hospital on Roosevelt Boulevard, where a section of Tacony Creek will be restored as one of the ten project sites. With the EPA grant (and $10,500 of its own funding) PHS will work with communities improve the watershed’s environmental quality while beautifying neighborhoods, improving access to the creek, and providing green jobs training to 40 individuals who will learn how to build and maintain these green infrastructure projects. The Tookany/Tacony-Frankford Watershed Partnership, Greentreks Network, the Water Department, and the Department of Parks & Recreation will partner with PHS on aspects of this initiative.

PHS was one of 46 Urban Waters grantees, out of 600 applicants. The only other Pennsylvania recipient was also local: Temple University’s Center for Sustainable Communities received $60,000 to develop stormwater management plans for three urban watersheds with a focus on environmental justice, stormwater controls, and water quality.

These new projects will complement to the city’s growing mosaic of green infrastructure projects started under the city’s ambitious Green City, Clean Waters plan, continuing Philly’s hot green streak.