In an effort to prevent your rain barrel from getting damaged during the upcoming cold months, your rain barrel should be winterized. If you haven’t already done so, now is the time to switch over your diverter so your rain barrel is no longer collecting water. It is important to attend to this yearly maintenance task to avoid the problems that can be caused by ice building up in your rain barrel. Below are the appropriate steps to take to ensure your rain barrel is ready for you once spring rolls around again. You can also print out our brief checklist of steps to take to winterize your barrel to print and take with you when you go outside.

1. Drain your barrel.
No matter the style of barrel you have, you should drain as much water out of it as possible. If you own a Hydra rain barrel – drain to lowest hole (on side) using a channel lock to open the plug.

2. Keep the spigot of the rain barrel open.
If your barrels has the spigot with the red handle (below left), turn the handle so it is in line with rest of spigot. If your barrel has the brass spigot (below right), turn it completely counter-clockwise to open fully.

3. Flip the switch on your diverter.
To turn barrel to the “winter” setting, move the tab on the diverter from the side going to the barrel to the side that is is attached to the bottom of the downspout, and the tab is pointing away from the rain barrel (see photo). In the spring, you will need to flip the metal tab to the side of the diverter that goes towards the rain barrel.

NOTE: if you don’t have a diverter, you must either re-attach your downspout or leave your barrel drained and the spigot open all winter. This is not recommended.

4. Check the water pathway.
If your downspout is not going into the sewer or stormwater system (see photo), make sure the water and ice won’t cause damage to your property and the area round the rain barrel.

Don’t let winter precipitation ice up sidewalks or get into foundations cracks.

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5. Take your garden hose inside.
As much as we love garden hoses, they don’t always survive the brutal Pittsburgh winters. They do better inside!

6. Cover your barrel if necessary.
If you own a rain barrel that is opened on the top or has a large top surface area, it has the potential to take in water/snow melt during winter months – including StormWorks’ Hydra. To prevent any water from entering the rain barrel, you can:

A. Cover top with a tarp. And/or:
B. Keep spigot open, as instructed in Step 2.

If you have questions, need support winterizing your rain barrel, or need rain barrel assistance in any way, StormWorks provides maintenance services for any size, style, or rain barrel model.

Our service agreement customers will receive two maintenance visits for each year they’re signed up. Schedule your appointment anytime through our online scheduler. We have 1-3 year plans available for all residents.

For more information, please see the StormWorks website.

Thank you!

This year is not only our 15th anniversary as an organization, but also the 10th anniversary of the completion of the Nine Mile Run Aquatic Ecosystem Restoration project. The $7.7 million restoration began in 2002 and took close to 4 years to complete. On August 17, 2006, a ribbon cutting ceremony was held to celebrate the completion of the project , which was funded and supervised by the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) and the City of Pittsburgh. This ambitious project turned a dangerous eyesore in a formerly isolated section of the park into a well-used regional amenity – an exceptional natural haven in the midst of the city.

The Nine Mile Run Watershed Association, founded in 2001, began outreach and education to the watershed communities prior to the restoration to help residents understand their connection to the stream and provide low cost ways to help improve water quality. During the restoration (2003-2006) we provided dozens of tours to explain the process and intended outcome to the public and to key stakeholders. When it was finished, the presence of NMRWA ensured continued stewardship, monitoring, and advocacy for the stream for years to come.

We celebrated and acknowledged this anniversary throughout the month of October, starting with a volunteer workday to steward the restoration area. 20 volunteers came out to give some TLC to the native plants and trees, remove trash from the stream, and also maintain a gravel trail that the Student Conservation Association built back in 2011. NMR is a public and ecological asset but can only remain a success with the dedication of volunteers. To date, NMRWA has coordinated over 2,200 volunteers who have donated more than 6,500 hours to steward and maintain the stream restoration. This doesn’t even include the countless hours that our Urban EcoStewards independently log, the labor put in by the Department of Public Works (DPW) or Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy (PPC)staff OR our work to monitor the stream, advocate for better stormwater policies, or celebrate!

NMRWA also hosted a few walking tours of the restoration area recently. One was a public tour on October 2 of the upper restoration area, exploring the recent history of the stream. At the tour, photographs taken pre-construction, during construction, and directly post-construction were examined and then ultimately compared to the current conditions.

The national Environmental Advisory Board (EAB) of the USACE hosted their annual meeting here in Pittsburgh on October 18 and visited the restoration area as a case study site. The EAB was of course joined by the USASCE Pittsburgh District staff, including the newly appointed Commander, Colonel John Lloyd. Also in the group were two USACE staff members who were a part of the NMR restoration: Lenna Hawkins, now the Deputy District Engineer, was one of the project managers; and Rose Reilly, who was a biologist for the project and also author of various studies on NMR and long-time supporter of our organization.

The EAB was amazed by the ecological success of the restoration primarily due to the collaboration for stewardship between NMRWA, PPC, and DPW foreman, Dick Wilford and his crew. Had these entities not stepped up to the plate, the restoration would surely be in much worse shape. Furthermore, the group was also impressed with our current work to address the source of the stream degradation – reducing excess stormwater runoff and combined sewer overflows in the watershed (and overall Pittsburgh region.) Over the past 15 years, we have all progressed to realize that it takes a combination of adaptive tactics to truly restore our natural environments, from planting native fauna and monitoring progress to reworking policy, capturing stormwater with natural processes, and creating healthy community assets. Going forward there is still work to do but this month surely humbled everyone in reflecting on just how far we, and the stream restoration, have come.

To learn more about the history of the restoration or about the monitoring program, check out the articles in our 15th anniversary fall newsletter!

If you visited the stream over the summer, you may have noticed a funky hue to it from time to time.  We have documented some abnormalities in water quality in our regular monitoring sampling.  The NMR Monitoring Committee looked further into these abnormalities by reaching out to the municipalities.  The conclusion of the source of the water quality fluxes was that there were documented water main and sewer link breaks, causing an influx in pollution to the stream throughout the summer.

Looking upstream from Commercial Avenue on July 27, 2016. Note the white-blue hue of the water caused by elevated aluminum and bacteria.

This is a stark reminder that while the stream and surrounding area is a beautiful place to walk or bike, the water flowing by is still plagued by urban stressors and an example of the environmental effects of aging infrastructure. The NMR stream itself has been studied for decades but NMRWA has worked with local ecological professionals to monitor the stream since near the end of the completion of the restoration in 2005.  There was a need to assist current research efforts and share information, but also to aggregate the results and inform the general public so NMRWA formed the NMR Monitoring Committee to collectively evaluate and assess the stream.

Looking upstream from Commercial Avenue again on August 24, 2016, a normal day. This is also a picture of one of the monthly sampling sites known as NMR-2.

Recently, we updated our monitoring webpages so that you can interact with and understand the parameters we are assessing, where, and our methods.  With the assistance our Stream Monitoring Intern, Cassidy, we expanded the webpage content and added interactive maps as well.  Check out the map below, which is also on our sample site webpage, you can see the exact four spots we take monthly recordings of pH, conductivity, and temperature along with water samples to test for bacteria, metals, and ions.  In addition to the map below, there is also now a map to see some of the data collected and a webpage for reports and studies completed on the stream and watershed.

(click here or on the image below to see the full screen map)

While we can’t completely control the urban watershed environment, we can contribute to the resiliency of the restoration and watershed as a whole through caring for our urban forest, capturing stormwater at our homes or in our neighborhoods, and stewarding the stream.  We hope you join us at any of our upcoming events this fall! If you have any questions about our monitoring program or upcoming events, please contact Maranda at .

We’ve been so busy with our Rosedale Runoff Reduction project that our post for September is on the RRRP website blog. We encourage you to check it out!

Hey there! My name is Abby. I moved to Pittsburgh last November after studying environmental science at Rutgers University and spending a summer working with the Musconetcong Watershed in rural New Jersey.

I moved to Pittsburgh because it fit all of my requirements for a place to live:

(1) it’s a beautiful city with a rich history;
(2) it’s not my hometown;
(3) it has lots of water, much of it in need of some TLC.

Soon after I moved, I got in touch with Maranda, the Restoration Stewardship Coordinator at Nine Mile Run Watershed Association. Maranda and the entire NMRWA crew welcomed me on board as a volunteer while I was settling into my new life. From December to May, I spent a few hours every Wednesday morning working at the office or out in the stream.

After growing up in what I refer to as the “garden part of The Garden State” and going to school for environmental science, it is extremely important for me to have a role in conservation. Volunteering with NMRWA gave me the opportunity to do stream monitoring and help with event planning. Along the way, in addition to improving my birdwatching skills, I learned about the watershed, the sewershed and the wonderful communities that make up Nine Mile Run!

NMRWA allowed me to maintain a connection with our valuable water resources. In June I started working full-time at La Prima Espresso Company as the Sustainability Coordinator, through which I plan to increase the company’s community involvement and decrease its ecological footprint. This includes highlighting the importance of water. Coffee cultivation has an enormous impact on the environment, and when coffee is brewed, the water used has an enormous impact on the taste of the coffee. We must realize that everything comes around.

Now that my mornings are busy with the exciting caffeinated world of coffee, I am hosting evening pop-up stream sweeps! Join me after work from 6:00-8:00pm on Wednesday, August 10^th at the parking lot by the Duck Hollow bridge. If you are not familiar with the stream, Duck Hollow is at the outlet of NMR to the Monongahela River, at the bottom of Old Browns Hill Road. Summer rains wash debris through the watershed, but we can catch some of the litter  before it gets lost to the larger rivers! I’ll have everything ready to clean up the stream. Just bring yourself, some sunblock, and boots if you’d like.  Looking forward to meeting you!