While investigating reports of uncontrolled water flowing down Phelan and in other parts of Polish Hill, the Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority found a previously undiscovered water main break up on Bigelow Blvd., as well as a large sewer that was not on any maps. They also confirmed that the water coming out of the ground on Phelan, near the IHM school, is indeed from an underground spring.
Our neighborhood has many underground springs–after all, Polish Hill was once called Springfield, and the hillside contains old mines as well as natural features. Some streams seem to have resurfaced in recent years, perhaps as a result of changes in the water table, such as the water main break on Bigelow, or just the water finding a new place to surface. One of the mysteries of Polish Hill.
I once went to a workshop organized by CMU’s Studio for Creative Inquiry on rivers in Pgh. They had a map of all the original streams within the city limits and showed that most of them had been culverted. You might want to get that map from them. It might help to locate water problems.
Really? Thanks for the tip, Alina!
Gravity, Water, Knowledge, sounds like we have the most powerful forces in the universe at our disposal here on Polish Hill.
So we need a Polish Hill Bottled Water co, that generates power to operate and produces an excess of power to put out onto a Polish Hill grid. Green roof on the bottling co, solar and wind power. Would be a great source of revenue to begin to continue the green development of Polish Hill. It would also be a great way to fund the Polish Hill Civic Association long into the future.