Nine Mile Run Watershed

I've been spending a lot of time learning about the Nine-Mile Run watershed recently. The watershed association has lots of information on this, but here's the short version:

1. There's a creek that runs through Pittsburgh called Nine Mile Run. Most is underground, but the above ground section runs through Frick Park.
2. Pittsburgh, being an old city, has a combined sewer system. That means storm water and sweage run through the same pipes.
3. A lot of the watershed (the area that goes into the creek) is paved. That means the water can't seep into the ground, so it accumulates. In the combined sewer system...
4. ...which overflows into Nine Mile Run creek. (On a rainy day, it smells like sewage for a reason. This type of sewage system was discontinued in the 1930's.)
   
5. Swissvale, Edgewood, and Wilkinsburg have separate sewage and storm systems. However, a lot of homes accidentally have their storm water connected to the sewage pipes. Guess where overflow goes when you have a small sewage pipe that's not meant to handle rainwater?
6. To make matters worse, the amount of paved area on the watershed means that the water picks up a lot of pollutants, all of which are dumped into this small area. Additionally, the sheer volume of water coming in erodes the entire creek. Normally, a lot of the water would have soaked into a permeable surface.
   

So, residents in the watershed are encouraged to contain as much water on their property as possible in order to prevent the systems from overflowing. They actually do dye tests in our borough to make sure you are containing your storm water. Many years ago, the people who owned our house had to retrofit their drainage system in order to comply.

Their solution was to put 3 feet of solid pvc in the ground and put the down spout in it.

Obviously, this fills up and overflows.

Back to our foundation.

Ooops.

So, we are spending the next week digging a 10 foot trench, laying down gravel and a perforated PVC pipe, and re-routing the water to the big sycamore tree. We're also putting in a 100 gallon rain barrel to capture the rainwater and use it in the garden during dry spells.

Rain barrels are available, with installation, from the watershed association.