Around Town: Saving for a rainy day
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A rain barrel made by Quick Clamp in Zelienople and patented by the Nine Mile Run Watershed Association.
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I'm walking with Brenda Smith along Nine Mile Run, a stream that meanders about two miles through Frick Park.
It begins somewhere out of sight in Regent Square and then flows southwest, betwixt and below Squirrel Hill and Swisshelm Park, until it gets to Duck Hollow and empties into the Monongahela River.
Locals used to call Nine Mile Run "stink creek," but following the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' largest (and best) domestic urban stream restoration project, it's a draw for dog-walkers, joggers, cyclists and bird-watchers.
I saw all such humans plus a red-winged blackbird as I trod streamside Monday morning with Ms. Smith, executive director of the Nine Mile Run Watershed Association. Another testament to nature's comeback came from Barbara Hicks, who was walking beside the stream with her daughter and grandson visiting from Seattle.
Ms. Hicks told us she had lived in Regent Square for 47 years, but her daughter never had the chance to enjoy Nine Mile Run when she was growing up.
Ms. Hicks went on to say, unsolicited, that she was buying the very thing Ms. Smith had been telling me about: one of the association's 133-gallon rain barrels. The terra-cotta pipes that take her roof's runoff to the sewer system have deteriorated to the point that water is getting in the basement, and Ms. Hicks would rather avoid the repairs, capture that rainwater and use it in her garden.
It will take some summers for Ms. Hicks to get her investment back. The rain barrels cost $100 plus tax for residents within the watershed, and the savings would come from not using the garden hose and paying Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority $8.08 per 1,000 gallons of water.
That price for a rain barrel -- which was offered only within a 6.5-mile area that includes Edgewood, Swissvale, Wilkinsburg and an eastern slice of Pittsburgh -- will go up July 1 when grants from the state and Richard King Mellon Foundation run out.
Ms. Smith grew up in Central Pennsylvania and says she never figured she'd spend so much of her time thinking about decaying Pittsburgh sewers and rain. Nor did I. Going forward, though, it will take a lot more money and desire to continue to divert rainwater from our aging sewer system.
First Published April 19, 2011 12:00 am
