Keep it flowing: Allegheny CleanWays event needs help to clear debris from stormwater grates

Allegheny CleanWays has worked since 2000 to keep Allegheny County’s waterways clean and to empower people to eliminate illegal dumping and littering in their communities.

This Saturday, it is trying something new with partners Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority and Penn State Watershed Stewards: a community cleanup of stormwater grates in Larimer. It is the pilot public group event for the nonprofit organization’s GrateKeepers initiative, something Gwen Sadler, ACW’s water-based programs coordinator, hopes will teach people about the issues involved in municipal water and sewage structure, critically important components for communities. And they will have some fun, too, while building community and cleaning up the neighborhood.

The event starts at 9 a.m. in Liberty Green Park in Larimer, with a free breakfast for volunteers provided by PWSA. Volunteers will split up and venture throughout Larimer and East Liberty, removing debris that clogs stormwater drains. Sadler hopes for at least 20 volunteers to clean between 20 and 30 grates before the event ends at 11 a.m.

The cleanup is vital. The debris buildup on grates contributes to flooding, infrastructure damage and river pollution, according to an ACW news release. The National Transportation Safety Board attributed it as a factor in the structural degradation and subsequent collapse of the Fern Hollow Bridge on Jan. 28, 2022, as illustrated in this NTSB video.  

The record rainfall this spring has intensified the issue, Sadler said, and that pattern will only increase in the future with climate change.

Organizers chose Liberty Green Park, which opened in 2021, as the starting point because it is an example of the city of Pittsburgh’s efforts to install green infrastructure, combining that with a new park for residents to enjoy, Sadler said.

ACW leaders dreamed up the GrateKeepers program in 2020 during the pandemic as a way for people to gather outside safely with others and clean up their neighborhoods.  Volunteers have self-identified problem stormwater grates and logged them on a map on the nonprofit’s website with comments about what they found there and removed. A short video explains the process, and the website offers safety tips for the volunteers. It notes that cleaning the grates helps prevent flooding on land, algae blooms in rivers, and plastic and other harmful waste from entering waterways.

Since the program began, 150 people have cleaned up and reported problem drains, Sadler said. But the partnership with PWSA may increase that number.

“Up until now, [we’ve had] people coming to us with their own concerns,” Sadler said. “That is also how we find many of our dump sites. We like that pipeline. [But] we are also doing work with PWSA. They actually have tracking capabilities [through sensors]. They are trying to design a system of high-risk areas. We are working with them in that direction to know where help is needed and preemptively take care of the situation.”

Liberty Green Park is located on an old stream site that fed into Negley Run, which then runs into the Allegheny River. “Back at the turn of the century, these streams were buried in underground pipes, and that became the beginning of our municipal water and sewage infrastructure,” Sadler explained. “Now a hundred years later we are dealing with the repercussions of trying to contain the power of water as climate change increases our annual rainfall and flooding.”

Saturday’s group event will be like a block party, similar to the Litter League — a project ACW sponsors with Friends of the Riverfront that began this past Saturday with a pickoff event in Millvale. That initiative, now in its fourth year, is a six-week competition with neighborhood teams.

“Now, in the post-pandemic landscape, we hope becoming a steward will encourage people to talk with their neighbors more and to feel the power of their own agency to work and organize for themselves,” Sadler said. “This event is unique in that it is bridging a gap between residents and the city workers that work to maintain our infrastructure we all depend on. Water truly connects us all and reveals how intertwined we are with nature, even in our urban environment.”

The volunteers will only clean what is on top of the grates, especially removing soil that can result in plants growing on them and blocking the water flow even more. “We can’t do the work of removing the grate and vacuuming it out, but we can be part of a notification system that PWSA is trying to build with sensors,” Sadler said. “We are focusing on top of the grate and the street up the path from the grate.   That’s why we are doing the litter cleanup, too. It eventually will blow and down toward the grate.”

ACW works with the city’s Public Works Department to dispose of the debris at the closest city site, or workers come and collect it.

After this event is over, ACW still needs year-round volunteers throughout the county. “We are looking for people who want to engage more than an event here and there, maybe at a steward level,” Sadler said. “It is not going to be a huge commitment. It’s really light work.”

The grate cleaning is a complement to ACW’s Tireless Project, aimed at getting Allegheny County residents engaged with the local rivers and streams through cleaning up debris that accumulates along the shorelines. Using its 28-foot pontoon boat, Rachel Carson, and its barge, the Plastic Magnet 1, the ACW team works with volunteers to remove trash from the rivers and educates them about issues affecting the region’s waterways.

Those river cleanups run from April to October, but the recent heavy rainfall has curtailed that work because water levels are too high and the currents too strong, Sadler said. The watercraft are docked at the Brilliant Boat Club, located above the Highland Park Dam.

To volunteer for Saturday’s event, go to https://www.alleghenycleanways.org/gratekeepers.html. Any business, organization or group interested in partnering with ACW on this or any other event can reach out to Sadler at Gwen@alleghenycleanways.org or 412-381-1301, ext. 5.