{"id":106,"date":"2019-06-18T13:56:00","date_gmt":"2019-06-18T17:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/water.phila.gov\/blog\/mill-creek-history-talk\/"},"modified":"2022-12-03T11:42:09","modified_gmt":"2022-12-03T16:42:09","slug":"mill-creek-history-talk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/water.phila.gov\/blog\/mill-creek-history-talk\/","title":{"rendered":"What Does History Have to Do with My Missing #34 Trolley?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Work to repair a cave-in caused by a sewer issue on Baltimore Avenue at 43rd Street<\/a> is likely to be done by the end of June<\/strong>. We are in touch with residents and businesses\u00a0working as quickly as possible with SEPTA to restore the #34 Trolley. Check the Alerts box on the SEPTA home page<\/a><\/strong> for updates.<\/p>\n

The very large hole in the street uncovered something else: the city's deep interest in what's beneath our feet and the underlying history<\/strong>. PWD Historian Adam Levine is happy to help us satisfy that curiosity.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The following is a quick summary of the Mill Creek sewer story, told by the expert who maintains archives documenting our 200-plus years of history.<\/h6>\n
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Mill Creek: \u2018Stream to Sewer\u2019 Backstory<\/h2>\n

Exactly 150 years ago, Philadelphia began a massive project that forever changed the city: transforming one of the area\u2019s larger Schuylkill River tributaries into one of our largest sewers. <\/big><\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A historic photo shows Mill Creek Sewer under construction in 1887, looking upstream towards 47th Street and Fairmount Avenue.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Mill Creek and its numerous smaller feeder streams once drained about 7.2 square miles<\/strong><\/em> of West Philadelphia.<\/p>\n

True to its name, the roughly six-mile waterway<\/strong> had about a dozen factories along its banks and also flowed through farmland. The headwaters bubbled up in Lower Merion Township, eventually meeting the Schuylkill River below Woodlands Cemetery<\/a>. The suburban portion of the stream still sees the light of day.<\/p>\n

In Philly, not so much:<\/strong> Beginning in 1869, the City of Philadelphia began burying Mill Creek in a giant sewer to provide drainage of stormwater and sewage for the quickly growing neighborhood. By the time the sewer was completed in the mid-1890s, all but a tiny tributary within the City limits had been piped underground.<\/p>\n

By obliterating the stream<\/strong>\u2014words used by the engineers of the day\u2014and filling in a valley the waterway had spent millennia carving out, this creek-to-sewer project opened up thousands of new acres made available for development. Neighborhoods with tens of thousands of houses were subsequently built on the formerly rural land.<\/p>\n

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A Rare Look at Hidden History + Current Updates<\/h4>\n

PWD historian Adam Levine is teaming up with the University of the Sciences to host a free public event<\/strong> on Tues. June\u00a025<\/strong> at 6:15\u00a0p.m. at 600 S. 43rd\u00a0St.<\/span><\/p>\n

Join us as we dive deep into the history, provide updates about repairs, and highlight local Green City, Clean Waters<\/em> projects. RSVP recommended, but not required:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Get Free Tickets<\/a><\/h5>\n<\/div>\n

In the century-and-a-half since the sewer was built, fill covering the sewer system was washed away, in a number of areas,\u00a0leaving behind land unable to sustain development.\u00a0Some have\u00a0since been reclaimed for recreation, community gardens, and urban farms. One of those spaces is Mill Creek Farm<\/a>, which maintains local green stormwater tools as a Soak It Up Adoption<\/a> partner.<\/p>\n

Combined Sewers Go Out of Fashion<\/h3>\n

Before the sewer project, Mill Creek emptied stormwater and raw sewage directly into the Schuylkill with no treatment. A new sewer created in the 1950s intercepted the sewage and sent it to the Southwest Water Pollution Control Plant<\/strong>, about four miles south of where the original mouth of the sewer dumped into the Schuylkill, for treatment.<\/p>\n

During wet weather, Mill Creek and other \u201ccombined sewers\u201d can overflow, allowing diluted sewage<\/strong> and stormwater<\/strong> to spill into the Schuylkill untreated. That problem is the focus of our efforts to reduce the volume of stormwater going into sewers using green stormwater tools and other infrastructure through the Green City, Clean Waters<\/em> program:<\/p>\n