Water Wall

These texts and images juxtapose the most recent regulatory actions and the concepts upon which they are based against a historic timeline which illustrates the history of regulatory action, minimal enforcement and political inaction regarding the sewage management problems of Nine Mile Run. The problem has been identified, state and local regulatory agencies have taken action, and politicians have subsequently ignored the issue time and time again.

The video, by Bob Bingham, illustrates the latent opportunity of this forgotten stream in the middle of the urban communities of the east end. Despite the effects of infrastructure and slag dumping; healthy trees, shale cliffs, fish and even Trillium define the banks of Nine Mile Run.

If the most recent Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) order is successful, the waters flowing through Frick Park may soon be protected from the raw sewage which leaks and spills from the sewer lines of Pittsburgh, Edgewood, Swissvale and Wilkinsburg. If the DEP order is successful, the Army Corp of Engineers will develop a $6 Million Dollar stream ecosystem restoration in the Nine Mile Run Valley, reaching up to Frick Park.

Each community in the Nine Mile Run Watershed has appealed the order.

Sewage continues to flow un-impeded through an expanding city park.

The observation made by Frederick Law Olmsted in 1910, "the stream, when it is freed from sewage, will be an attractive and interesting element in the landscape," continues as nothing more than a goal for the 21st century.