Water Quality in Pittsburgh: City-Wide Green-First Plan
Lauren Miller, Olivia Shoucair, Monique Smith, Leah Jiang
PART I: Critique
Project Overview
The City-Wide Green-First Infrastructure Plan is a plan put forth by the Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority (PWSA) in response to the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) mandate to resolve the poor water quality issues due to the Allegheny County Water and Sewer Authority (ALCOSAN) sewage system overflow. The plan “outlines how Pittsburgh intends to use innovative, cost-effective, and green infrastructure approaches to manage stormwater… and presents an adaptable solution that will address the root cause of [the] region’s stormwater challenges by investing in integrated stormwater management infrastructure.” By preventing stormwater from reaching the combined sewage system during peak rain events, this plan hopes to manage runoff from 1,835 acres by 2032 and have the following outcomes:
1. Cost-effectively reduce combined sewer overflows and sanitary sewer
overflows during storm events;
2. Reduce basement backups, localized surface flooding, and direct stream
inflows to the sewer system;
3. Improve water quality and restore local habitats;
4. Enhance urban settings and accrue social, economic, and environmental
benefits to the entire Pittsburgh community.
The City-Wide Green First projects first underwent an assessment process, in order perform a watershed and sewer shed analysis, investigate catch basin locations, as well as determine the most critical areas to target based on historical hazard and safety data. Instead of using traditional water conveyance and storage methods, this plan would focus on “Enhanced Green Best Management Practices”. These methods mimic natural processes to capture runoff. For example, this would include rain garden development, tree planting, pervious pavement installation, and wetland and stream restoration.
The City-Wide Green First Plan is currently a draft document about which the PWSA and ALCOSAN encourage public comments and feedback.
Vision & Lifestyle
The notion of sustainability is at the core of the ‘Green First’ infrastructure plan . The plan was created with 20 year vision of the future of Pittsburgh’s water infrastructure and is explicitly integrated with other water initiatives already taking place. The planners/designers used the long term vision they created with the plan and then did a form of backcasting in order to prioritize what areas should be addressed first. The Green First plan references other cities that have adopted green infrastructure plans and used those examples as a way to seed ideas for how these approach could be implemented in Pittsburgh, which seems to be a form of cosmopolitan localism. The planners were also very intentional about maintaining an iterative design and implementation process in order to allow for flexibility as the project evolves.
However, while the project is situated as a long term endeavor to implement, it does not seem connected to a larger vision for the future of Pittsburgh as a whole. It is also almost exclusively framed at the infrastructure/regime level. While there are references as to how enhancing the city’s green infrastructure may improve quality of life and property values, there is not a convincing connection being made to citizens at the scale of everyday life and practices. There are still questions around how this could impact residents daily routines, images of a neighborhood, or identity as a city as a whole.
Theories of Change
The theory of change that underpins this project is rooted in a systems level approach. The ‘Green First’ infrastructure plan aims to address three water-related issues — combined sewer overflows, localized flooding and water quality — by identifying a common root cause. All three of these issues can be attributed to the excessive stormwater overloading an aged sewer system. Therefore, the proposed solution was to improve the stormwater management at the surface while optimizing the sewer system.
Despite the comprehensive and relatively long-term approach taken by the plan, the theory of change that was applied to the project has clear limitations. While a systems level approach was taken to address multiple problems surrounding issues of water quality, the proposed solution only operates at the regime level and doesn’t consider opportunities at different scales of engagement. For example, there could be an opportunity to integrate trends emerging at the niche level. Additionally, the existing strategy is solely top-down and doesn’t aim to integrate individual practices and lifestyles that might support change at the regime level.
Mindset & Posture
While the proposed solution aims to take a more integrated, systems level approach, the project was still conceived from a largely mechanistic mindset. The “Green First” infrastructure plan leverages existing tools (pervious pavement, water retention areas etc.) to essentially “engineer out” the stormwater issue. Additionally, while the planners did take collaborative ‘posture’ in the development of the plan by engaging key stakeholders, they only spoke with internal and external experts. A more ‘holistic’ and collaborative approach may have entailed engaging with local community members as well.
New ways of designing
From the perspective of ‘new ways of designing,’ the Green First plan seems to be well aligned, with some minor exceptions noted below, with the principles of Transition Design. The Green First plan is emphatic in its intention to design from a “comprehensive systems approach.” Instead of trying to address the symptoms of the problem, the Green First plan explicitly set out to address the root causes of Pittsburgh’s storm water overflow and water quality issues. This approach led them to identify the volume of water flowing into the city’s infrastructure as an effective leverage point into improving the system. From there the planners then were able to explore solutions outside of the traditional centralized approaches (fixing pipe infrastructure, more catchment wells) and find ways to enhance the landscape’s ability to absorb rainwater where it falls and before it enters the system. Because the plan is predicated on the idea of enhancing the landscape’s ability to absorb water, it is inherently place-based. The strategies for doing so — rain gardens, bioswales, wetlands and permeable pavements — may be common across the city, but each instantiation will have to be configured to the contours of the specific site,, and this could potentially foster a new sense of place in the neighborhoods where the projects exist.
The plan was also developed through a design-led multi-stakeholder process, where environmental concerns were certainly at the forefront of the conversation. However, the stakeholders involved in this process were almost exclusively experts, and did not leverage citizen engagement or non-expert viewpoints. Relatedly, this means that while social concerns are referenced, it seems as though social elements were more of an afterthought or as positive externality that could help sell the approach, instead of a core design principle.
Given that a the planning process was design-led, the planners also incorporated an “adaptive process” for implementation, where projects will be investigated, designed and planned, implemented, and then evaluated. The idea being that the Green First plan will test projects on a small “niche” scale, learn from the results, and then adapt and scale over time. The planners are invested in analyzing the success of projects using triple-bottom line metrics (social, environmental, and economic).
Connection to Wicked Problems
When looking at the wicked problem of water quality in Pittsburgh, it is clear that the Green First plan has the potential to have a large impact on the infrastructural and environmental areas that we identified in our wicked map at the beginning of the semester. By aiming to decrease the volume of stormwater in the watershed, the Green First plan is minimizing the negative impacts that the combined storm and sewage overflow system by leveraging and enhancing the qualities of the environment and the fact that the water cycle is an open system. The Green First plan seeks to counterbalance (or in some places replace) the increase of impervious surfaces that result from new development in the city. The plan also hopes to improve recreational opportunities and beautify neighborhoods in a way that could lead to increased property values. However, as we start to envision how this plan could be improved in Part 2 of this case study, we will look for ways to connect the plan to social elements in the wicked map and at the daily-life level of scale.
Needs & satisfiers
The City-Wide Green-First plan satisfies some of Max Neef’s needs. For example, having sewage-free clean river water from which one can derive their drinking water satisfies a very basic subsistence need. Subsistence is also satisfied by the plan in the proposed creation of local jobs and economic opportunities. One could also say that the elimination of sewage in our rivers also serves as satisfying human needs for protection against the diseases that may result from that contamination. In addition, cleaner rivers would also open up leisure opportunities involving the river, including fishing, boating, and various other river or river-front related activities. An improved quality of life and neighborhood aesthetics could also foster a positive sense of identity within Allegheny county.
The missing needs revolve primarily around the lack of community participation. While the plan does explicitly aim to benefit communities in the area, it does not try to engage communities in generating their own ‘Enhanced Green Best Management Practices’, thereby not satisfying the need for creation. The educational outreach is also minimal, which leaves the need of understanding unfulfilled in the population overall.
Understanding the scope of the project
The City-Wide Green-First Infrastructure Plan would be situated at the intersection of System Scale of Engagement and Cross-Sector Expertise as shown in the Winterhouse Social Pathways Matrix below. The existing project requires Cross-Sector expertise as its implementation necessitates the participation from across sectors. This might include the partnership between the utility provider, infrastructure planners, engineers, plant experts and local businesses in order to realize the ‘Green-First’ vision.
Additionally, the plan resides at the system level as a government led initiative that aims to alter existing infrastructure and processes for managing stormwater. At this scale, the project’s scope and impact could affect the entire city of Pittsburgh and its residents. The output of the plan could include city-wide improvements in water quality, reductions in localized flooding, increases in property value and recreational value. Additionally, the plan could have an ecological systems impact on the city providing habitat, flood protection and cleaner air and water.
PART II: Transition Design Proposal
Proposal Overview
The Green First plan has many merits. It is a thoughtful, long term plan that is founded upon a fairly holistic worldview that prioritizes sustainability and tackling of the root causes of Pittsburgh’s water quality problems. However, a key element that is missing from the plan is an explicit connection to the everyday lives of Pittsburgh residents. Thus, we are proposing to link the Green First plan with neighborhood and city-wide composting initiatives, such as Shadyside Compost & AgRecycle, as a way of connecting residents directly to ecosystem rehabilitation projects in their neighborhood. The hope is that this coupling could eventually open up opportunities for more community/neighborhood-led ecological watershed management. The first step in this process would use the compost created by resident’s yard and food compost as the base soil for the green infrastructure/ecosystem rehabilitation projects. Residents could then be able to see how their “inputs” are helping to seed a new future in Pittsburgh. With the creation of these new neighborhood assets, residents may start to feel a stronger sense of place and responsibility for proactively addressing the issues within the watershed. In the farther out future, one could imagine that green infrastructure projects would not only take place on public property and led by the city, but also as a distributed system of coordinated “projects” between neighbor’s yards.
Vision & Lifestyle
Our vision for 50 years in the future involves integrating individual household practices into the continued maintenance and development of runoff management as well as the revitalization of Pittsburgh river-fronts. In this vision, it will be normal household practice to contribute kitchen and yard waste to a community compost, which will then be used to keep up any rain gardens etc. that are utilized to control runoff in that community. The green infrastructure proposed in the City-Wide Green-First plan will have by this time been implemented throughout the entire watershed and made the rivers of Pittsburgh clean and safe, and more riverfront parks will have been established, and the economy and lifestyle surrounding the rivers will have dramatically increased. This could include river transport, increased recreational activity, and new businesses. Our backcasting from this vision, in which most activity is community-based, involved first relying on the existing political and infrastructural system to create a city-wide compost collection plan to aid the City-Wide Green-First plan implementation. After practices of yard/kitchen waste collection have been thoroughly normalized and incorporated at the landscape level, responsibility will then be redistributed among communities so that solutions can become even more place-based and foster community identity.
Theories of Change
The theory of change of our proposed transition-design solution uses two different strategies for effecting change. In the short-term, it sees the current City-Wide Green-First plan utilizing a leverage point (sewage in the rivers) to effect a change to a more sustainable way of existing (using green infrastructure to stop runoff before reaching the stormwater system). In the long-term, this solution depends on social practice theory for its evolution and development. The community involvement of composting and looking after watershed maintenance will depend on the practice of saving kitchen and yard waste becoming normalized, as well as making individual property decisions based on their effect on community watershed.
When looking at the MLP, this solution hopes to affect both the niche market (community compost) as well as the regime (City-First Green-First plan) in order to effect change at the landscape level. The current City-First Green-First plan makes a change in the regime, which in our solution will lead to more support and utilization of niche activities (ex. Shadyside Compost Exchange). This will lead to a change in practices that will slowly, over several decades, affect the landscape enough to normalize sustainable practices around community engagement and individual household landscaping.
Place-based, Integrated Satisfiers
As outlined in the case study of the City-Wide Green-First infrastructure plan, this proposed solution will likely meet several of Max-Neef’s needs. A clean river will satisfy basic subsistence needs, protection from disease, and increased leisure opportunities in Pittsburgh rivers. The missing satisfiers for the rest of Max-Neef’s needs would be largely addressed in the subsequent steps of our transition design solution.
For example, in later stages, after practices around composting and watershed maintenance have been normalized, communities will be primarily responsible for planning and taking care of their runoff solutions. This will foster a sense of identity and pride in communities, and also satisfy the need for participation, as all households will be involved to some extent. It will also give communities the opportunity to create their own solutions, thus satisfying the need of creation.
In this transition design solution, the surrounding counties and even states will be coordinated so that the entire watershed is involved in the system. This will create a network of shared information and support so that various strategies and techniques (rain gardens, roof-top gardens, tiered curb plantings, etc.) can be customize for different regions. This information could then be shared and adapted globally.
Leveraging Under-Utilized Resources
This transition design solution depends on many under-utilized resources. On a very basic level, yard and kitchen waste is an extremely under-utilized resource. Most people you have property with a yard at the very least cut their grass (it is a community ordinance in many cases), and most households produce compostable kitchen waste. These resources are already being produced and this solution would collect and capitalize on their potential.
There are also existing structural resources, such as curbs and roofs, that can be planted and utilized as ways to reduce runoff. Whenever company parking lots need to be re-paved, that could be used as a opportunity to use permeable pavement or green parking lots. In addition, if communities worked together to coordinate individual property landscapes, every community member’s yard could be a resource in preventing or capturing runoff.
Another resource for maintaining community watershed would be the education system as well as any volunteers from demographics such as the elderly. Part of the education in Pittsburgh communities could be volunteering to maintain restored streams/wetlands, planted rain-gardens/parks etc. This would both provide the needed active participation of community members and start fostering community identity in children. Similarly, programs could be developed to engage the elderly in watershed maintenance activities.
Emergent Products, Services and Outcomes
We imagine that our solution could allow for new practices products and services to emerge in unplanned ways. Our intention to involve Pittsburgh residents in the rehabilitation of their own ecosystems could lead to new lifestyles and practices if successful. This could pave the way for other spontaneous practices to arise.
While these infrastructure projects would initially take place in public spaces, we could see this evolving into a network of coordinated projects between neighbors. This could lead to the emergence of more community gardens, which in-turn, could provide local produce to a neighborhood or even give rise to small local business. Another practice that could emerge from this solution might involve the use of catch basins to harvest water. The water could then be used as a community “rain barrel” to maintain local projects.
The creation of new ecological areas around the city could also provide opportunities for environmental education programs. During outdoor excursions students could learn about the natural world, explore local ecosystems and work together as a community. These ecological spaces could include community gardens and even aquaponics classrooms.
Restoring & Strengthening Relationships
Our solution aims to restore the relationship between the social and natural world by inviting Pittsburgh residents to participate in the restoration of their own local ecosystems. Initially, the solution aims to strengthen this relationship through the act of composting and by linking the resident’s composting efforts to the resolution of the stormwater issue. Once residents obtain a greater awareness and understanding of watershed management, one could imagine that they might design their own landscapes to help protect the Pittsburgh watershed.
We also see the potential for this solution to help strengthen the social system within which it is embedded, particularly if city-coordinated rehabilitation projects evolved into a network of coordinated projects. Residents could come together to build and maintain community gardens. If new ecological areas provided students with educational opportunities then this might allow students to build a connection to the natural world around them. Both scenarios could ultimately help foster a greater sense place and belonging.
Barriers and Challenges
Perhaps the greatest barrier to success will involve incentivizing participation within this particular model. Our solution requires participants to make adjustments to their everyday practices if they aren’t already composting and to make a more conscious effort around managing their waste. This may prove to be challenging for people that aren’t motivated by the potential collective benefits of the proposed solution.
In order to motivate people, we might have to establish an incentive program for it to seem worth it for the participants. This barrier arises out of an old mechanistic mindset and non-collaborative posture, where according to Fritjof Capra, competition is valued over cooperation and domination is valued over partnership. A shift in mindset is required of people that do participate in this solution — a shift from an individualistic mindset to a more collective mindset.
Scaling Your Solution Spatiotemporally
Visualizing a Transition Design Solution
Our transition design solution in its early phases will expand the City-Wide Green-First plan by including more individual practices and community involvement. Individual households will contribute their yard waste (such as grass clippings, leaf litter, weeds) and their compostable kitchen waste to a PWSA composting system. The resulting compost will be used by employees or volunteers to develop the green infrastructure, such as rain gardens, tiered curbside plantings, and rooftop gardens.
In the medium term, community watershed management will be taught and practiced in the Pittsburgh education system. Different neighborhoods will begin to coordinate efforts and distribute resources. A volunteer network will be established for youth and the retired population to help runoff capture efforts.
In the long term, individual household properties will be coordinated in terms of landscaping to reduce runoff. Districts based on the natural landscapes will govern their own watershed management strategies in a place-based way, and the region/county level watershed management body will provide resources and facilitate communication between areas. The now clean river is economically and culturally revitalized.
