Wingohocking Creek

The Lenni-Lenape strove to "walk so gently on the earth" without leaving a big impact on the environment, and were the first stewards of the land in the Delawar...e River Watershed. The Lenape are indigenous to the places we now call New Jersey, Delaware, southern New York, and eastern Pennsylvania. #IndigenousPeoplesDay See more

It’s #IndigenousPeoplesDay! Why do we call ourselves the Tookany/Tacony-Frankford Watershed?The creek is so nice it’s named thrice! Our name is a mouthful, but... the creek itself changes names 3x before reaching the Delaware River! Its headwaters begin in Montgomery County, where it is named the Tookany. As it meanders south through Philadelphia in Cheltenham, it changes to Tacony. Both names originate from the native Lenni-Lenape tekene, meaning woods or wilderness. Lastly, it merges with Wingohocking Creek to form the Frankford Creek before meeting the Delaware at the Betsy Ross Bridge! Lenni-Lenape Territory

Philadelphia’s historic Wingohocking Watershed is a large area in Northwest Philadelphia that extends roughly from Gowen St in the north to I St in the South an...d from Wolston Ave on the east to Germantown Ave on the west. The Creek was encased in combined sewers in the late 1800s, early 1900s to help solve gross water pollution caused by 1,000’s of homes, farms and businesses discharging raw sewage and wastewater into the local creek and its tributaries. The combined stormwater and wastewater sewers, large for their construction period, have proven to be too small by today’s standards. In the 1920 30s, Logan area businesses and homeowners threated a tax revolt if something wasn’t done about the chronic flooding in the Logan area. The City responded by increasing capacity for the lower portion of the Wingohocking Watershed; unfortunately the Germantown E Mt Airy Ogontz area sewer capacities were not increased, resulting in our upper watershed flash flooding problems. The City expended substantial capital costs to build the combined sewers. After spending these large sums of money, the City encouraged development in the area, including on the historic flood plains of the Wingohocking Creek. In fact, Belfield Ave and Sprague Street were built right over the former Wingohocking Creek. Today’s flash flooding is the natural flooding of the Creek during major rainstorms. The Wingohocking watershed is the City’s largest combined sewer area, with annual discharges of 1.5 billion gallons of combined sewage to the Frankford Creek at the I St and Ramona Ave outfall, called T14 by the Water Department. How will the City solve our flooding and combined sewage overflow problems? The City and the Germantown E Mt Airy and Ogontz neighborhoods are at a critical juncture point where we need to adopt plans to resolve both the flash flooding and the combined sewer overflow problems. We need to learn from past Wingohocking mistakes and make sure that our decisions do not just repeat the mistakes of the past. As a retired environmental engineer, I have been studying my watershed for years. Please join me for 2 more talks on the Wingohocking Watershed flooding and combined sewer problems and learn about available options to address both issues, either separately or in a joint integrative approach. My goal is to inform my Germantown E Mt Airy Ogontz neighbors of our water problems and help all of us to understand the options we and the City have to solve them. The Sept. 16 and October 14th (7:oo 8:00 PM) ZOOM talks will give you the facts and information you need to understand our water challenges and opportunities and to be prepared to add your voice as the City prepares to decide the future of our watershed. The attached flyer provides the details on how to attend these ZOOM talks. See more

On Tuesday, we saw severe flooding across the watershed. While Tropical Storm Isaias affected our homes, roads, and businesses, this was just a symptom of a pro...blem we face every day stormwater. Development and suburban sprawl are not new to our region, but each time more and more impervious surfaces like parking lots and buildings are added to our landscape, water has fewer and fewer places to go when it rains. Wissahickon Trails has been working with community partners for over 63 years to protect the creek and its tributaries, preserve land to slow the flow of stormwater, and work together with municipalities and homeowners to find new solutions. This week, we saw how critical this work is for the health and safety of our community. We need your help to keep going. Whether you volunteer, implement stormwater solutions on your property, donate, or ask your municipality to fund stormwater management--every action makes a difference. Learn more about our Water Initiatives: https://wissahickontrails.org/initiatives/water-initiatives Video: Wissahickon Creek flooding the parking lot and first floor of the Four Mills Barn. Courtesy of Jamie Stewart.

**Update 8/7/20** Several sections of the Green Ribbon Trail have been re-opened. Visit our website for details: https://wissahickontrails.org//impact-of-hurri...cane-isaias- We received more than 7 inches of rain this morning which caused severe flooding in the Wissahickon Creek. This flooding has impacted the Green Ribbon Trail, Four Mills Barn, and Evans-Mumbower Mill. As of 2:45pm the creek is nearly 16 feet high, the waters will continue to rise even after the rain has stopped. The Green Ribbon Trail and its parking lots are not open at this time for safety concerns. We will not know the extent of the damage until flood waters recede and we can safely enter these properties. Thank you for your understanding and stay safe. We will update this post when we have new information.

The Wissahickon at Valley Green.

The Wissahickon is out of it’s banks again.

Today, we are posting this rainy view taken at the intersection of Church Lane and Belfield Avenue circa 1970, in honor of the arrival of Rain Day. As many of y...ou are likely aware, much of Belfield Avenue was built over the Wingohocking Creek in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with the creek being located into a sanitary sewer. For decades after, a good rain would cause flooding along Belfield Avenue, such as that shown here. And though it is certain that this puddle would have been attractive for neighborhood children to play in, their parents would have been less than pleased, as they surely would have had basements to pump out and dry! For more information about Rain Day, visit: https://www.daysoftheyear.com/days/rain-day/ The photograph shown here and thousands of others are available online at https://germantown.pastperfectonline.com/ It’s a great way to spend some time reliving Germantown memories at home.