Ensuring Environmental Health in Postindustrial Cities Workshop Summary (2003) / Chapter Skim
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4. Special Issue for Pittsburgh: Our Rivers
4. Special Issue for Pittsburgh: Our Rivers
Pages 20-27
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From page 20... ...
Hugh Henry Brackenridge, also a man of letters generally credited with writing the first American novel, though he was better known in this community for his service as a legislator, member of the state supreme court, and founder of the University of Pittsburgh beheld the settlement at the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers and was transfixed by a powerful and prescient vision of its future. "This town," he said in the 1780s, "must be a place of great manufactory indeed, the greatest on the continent or in the world." Pittsburgh did become the cradle of the American industrial revolution, Nordenberg said, and its rivers played a huge role in its growth.
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From page 21... ...
"Success will depend in no small measure," he concluded, "on clean rivers used in ways that make them one of our most important regional assets and amenities." After Nordenberg's introduction, a panel of speakers discussed the pollution of Pittsburgh's rivers, the causes, and specific ways to clean them up, as well as plans for the reclamation and revitalization of the city's riverfronts to better serve its people. POLLUTED RIVERS, SEWAGE OVERFLOWS In the spirit of Joel Tarr's earlier point that Pittsburghers should get "beyond celebration," Jared Cohon, president of Carnegie Mellon University, noted the need for major action to improve the water quality of the city's rivers.
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From page 22... ...
Pittsburgh's CSOs, moreover, are often activated even under dry conditions; because this urban sewage system is old and degraded, water seeping into the pipes increases flow beyond the level for which the system was designed, creating "uncontrolled overflows." The second reason for Pittsburgh's polluted rivers is failing septic systems. This is a particular problem here, Cohon said, because the region is cursed with bad soil with regard to its suitability for septic systems.
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From page 23... ...
State level CSO information based in part on unofficial EPA estimates, 1998. SOURCE: Southwestern Pennsylvania Water and Sewer Infrastructure Project Steering Committee, 2002.
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From page 24... ...
To coordinate these three approaches and deal with the remaining shortfall, the Allegheny Conference on Community Development has been working to create a virtual regional body the Watershed Alliance for the Three Rivers Region (WATRR) that would provide critical services from three existing organizations:
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From page 25... ...
. "If you can solve the problem in Pittsburgh," he concluded, "you can do it anywhere." RIVERS AS OUR FUTURE The charge of the Riverlife Task Force, according to Executive Director Lisa Schroeder, is to create a master plan and vision for Pittsburgh's rivers, coordinate what has been a series of individual development projects, and "make Pittsburgh's riverfronts among the most spectacular in the world." In pursuit of these goals, the mayoralty appointed Task Force consisting of 46 civic leaders from the public, private, and nonprofit sectors is taking two mutually reinforcing approaches.
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From page 26... ...
The crux of the Task Force's proposal is to create a public park, Three Rivers Park, where community life could be centered in the heart of the confluence at the heart of the basin with a continuous rim of green, open, public space around the edges, and commercial development flanking the sides that contribute to the creation of that public domain. Working within, at a minimum, the 50-foot setback that exists under current zoning regulations, the space would be linked along the shoreline, across the bridges, and through water landingsacross the water.
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From page 27... ...
The arrows show important public byways and entries into the park system and the asterisks denote a series of water landings the edge places where public uses may reinforce each other. SOURCE: Riverlife Task Force.
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