Blog

Exploring the Lenapehoking Watershed on Native American Heritage Day

November 25, 2022

For Native American Heritage Day, we wanted to share this beautiful map featuring some of the natural features, plants, and animals important to the Lenni-Lenape Nations.

William Penn balks at drinking the "mixed drink" offered him: Schuylkill water, mixed with pollution from the upstream sources named. Editorial cartoon by Fred Morgan, Philadelphia Inquirer, April 6, 1899. One of a series of cartoons drawn by Morgan protesting the state of the city's drinking water and trying to encourage the passage of legislation authorizing the construction of a water filtration system.

Half a Century of Clean Water: The Clean Water Act, 1972-2022

October 29, 2022

The 50th Anniversary of the Clean Water Act, and a video by Adam Levine highlighting the Rebirth of the Rivers.

Travel through the Philadelphia of a century ago, with a severely erudite guide

April 2, 2020

PWD’s web editor wonders how he can solace himself with the amber.

Flashback Friday … the 13th!

December 13, 2019

A story for Friday the 13th about my close encounter with a demizen of the sewers.

A list of rules governing the sanitary maintenance of privy vaults in Philadelphia in 1915

Be Thankful You Don’t Live in Pre-Flush Philly

November 22, 2019

A post to commememorate World Toilet Day.

The Day Fairmount Dam Vanished

October 4, 2019

Marking the 150th anniversary of the Schuylkill River’s worst-ever flood.