Quench your thirst for knowledge... visit the Fairmount Water Works Interpretive Center! Brought to you by the 1801 1799 The Histo ry of Wat er 1880 1815 1900 TIME s clean and pure.......by 1880 pollution LINE ill River wa killed all fish.. The Schuylk .....We finally s tarted to Nobody will notice if I dump my trash 1799 1815 The Fairmount Water into the RIVER! 1900s The pollution in The Philadelphia Works was built, located right the Delaware and Schuylkill Water Department on the Schuylkill River. This Rivers got so bad that the began. site was chosen because it Philadelphia Water Depart- was the highest point close to ment built a system of water Hear Ye! treatment plants. At that time, Hear Ye! 1801 The Water Department Philadelphia on the Schuylkill. Philadelphia completed the City’s first water It used the river’s flowing it was the largest water filtration had one of the system, consisting of two pump- power to turn giant water YUCK! system in the world! Beginning first water ing stations: one located on the wheels which powered the in 1909, the treatment plants systems in the pumps. cleaned all of the river water USA! Schuylkill River at Chestnut St.; the second (above) located in before we used it. Centre Square, exactly where City Hall stands today. Untreated What’s the 1880s Although difference water was pumped from the Fairmount Park had been between the The land is Schuylkill to the dome at the top created upstream of the land and DIRTY of the Centre Square station. the river? and the Water Works to protect the river is The water then flowed by gravity City’s water supply, industry TIDE-Y. to the homes and businesses of and cities farther upstream on the City, today called “Old City.” the Schuylkill were dumping chemicals and waste into the river which flowed down Are the into the Philadelphia water FISH supply…people and fish I get a CHARGE biting? out of our new They were getting sick and dying! water system! sure are! page 1 We need your help to protect elphia our watersheds in the 21st Century hilad and beyond! Use in P 1957 1984 TODAY The e fish and wildlife returned! FUTURE ater and th clean our wastew YUCK! This water We are glad we can SWIM tastes 1957 Primary Treatment in the DELAWARE RIVER again! worse than began on all Philadelphia LIMA BEANS! wastewater. That means that we cleaned the water that we TODAY The FAIRMOUNT WATER WORKS used before we put it back into INTERPRETIVE CENTER is open. It is an the rivers. This got rid of exciting, watershed education center about half of the harmful complete with interactive exhibits, a pollutants in the wastewater. classroom, theater, and more! Education is the key to keeping our drinking water Whatcha clean in the future! Doing? I’m cleaning Wow! my water before I never knew that learning about water could I pour it back So am I ! 1900–1950s into the river. be so much fun! eck the ticker Sadly, because we now had ? Ch to ing see do w ls h a o’ a system for cleaning the m s Secondary Treatment i th 1984 n r a Huh? r iv e i v n water before we used it, we i g of wastewater began. This gets r a e n it r d turned our backs on the rivers o w v rid of 95% of the pollutants in h a f o r ’ s u d and pollution got worse. No o y the wastewater. As a result, fish, y i ILDLIFE n e ATE W ... W R D g r AN . a fish lived in the Schuylkill or birds, and other wildlife have w o Delaware Rivers from Trenton returned to both rivers. We’ve H down to Wilmington! The learned from our mistakes. We Water Department cleaned the now know that we need to keep water so it was safe to drink, the water supply clean before but it didn’t taste very good! and after we use it! page 2 Wise Water Use is Important! Yo Kids! We use water everyday, in so many ways! When we pollute the land we pollute our water. Rain washes the trash and pollutants on the ground into our local streams or into storm drains, which lead to our drinking water supply! Dive into this game and learn about the many uses of water, both good and bad, and discover why water is so important! Go to a car wash Go that recycles water. swimming at a community pool. MOVE AHEAD START MOVE AHEAD 1 SPACE 1 SPACE HERE Drink a glass Wash your of tap water! Let the faucet hands! Water your lawn GO AGAIN drip for days. MOVE AHEAD excessively. GO BACK 3 SPACES GO BACK 1 SPACE 1 SPACE Take a really long shower. DIRECTIONS: LOSE A TURN 1. Find an eraser, paper clip, stick of gum or other game piece and place on “START HERE.” Your body 2. Flip a coin when it’s your turn: Turn off the faucett while you needs 8 glasses HEADS, move 1 space ahead brush your teeth. of water TAILS, move 2 spaces ahead MOVE AHEAD everyday! 1 SPACE 3. The first one to “FINISH” wins. move 1 HAVE FUN! move 2 page 3 Pour paint thinner down the drain. Water the A rainy day waters our environment. GO BACK house plants. 3 SPACES Fertilize MOVE AHEAD GO AGAIN! your lawn 1 SPACE right before it rains. GO BACK What do you call a fish 2 SPACES with a couple of knees? A two-knee fish! Throw litter into the street. GO BACK Clean up trash TO START! Pour oil into a storm drain. on the sidewalk. GO BACK GO AGAIN 3 SPACES SHORTCUT IF YOU LAND ON THIS SPACE! Take public transportation Plant a Tree. Pick up after to the Fairmount Water Works GO AGAIN! your dog. Interpretive Center and learn MOVE AHEAD all about water! 3 SPACES Drink a glass of tap water! GO AGAIN Open up a fire hydrant Can You List Other in the summer. Ways We Use Water? Help with GO BACK the laundry. TO START! MOVE AHEAD 1 SPACE Use toxic substances, such as drain cleaner or moth balls. FINISH GO BACK 2 SPACES page 4 The Natural Water Cycle PRECIPITATION ater Is Water vapor in clouds cools W Con sta and forms water particles, RECYC nt which fall to the ground as LED ly snow or rain. SURFACE RUNOFF Rainfall that can’t sink into the ground by infiltration flows over the ground into streams. TRANSPIRATION Plants and trees absorb water INFILTRATION from the soil through their EVAPORATION Some rainfall sinks into the roots and “breathe” it back into Water on the surface of the ground and eventually the air as water vapor. ground or in lakes and rivers “percolates” down to is warmed by the sun, which the groundwater. creates water vapor, which rises into the air and forms clouds. GROUNDWATER Water is stored in the gaps of porous rock, gravel, or sand and slowly flows into streams. CLEAN WATER is a limited RESOURCE! The SAME water that the dinosaurs drank...is the SAME water that we drink today. Water is constantly recycled and reused over and over again! Prehistoric WOW! Modern Times Times Doesn’t that make your head SWIM ? page 5 Philadelphia’s Water Use Cycle Follow me through an A-MAZE-ING journey WATER STORAGE TANK and trace the route of your drinking water... 2 WATER TREATMENT PLANT Stored in a reservoir or water tower, drinking water is forced by gravity into a water main (large pipe) that START leads to your home. WATER MAIN 1 Water is pumped to a drinking water RIVER treatment plant, where it is cleaned for drinking. Bathroom All of Philadelphia’s drinking YOUR HOME water comes from either the Delaware or Schuylkill River! GARDEN COMPOST Kitchen Incoming water is kept SEPARATE from outgoing water in your home. END WATER POLLUTION CONTROL PLANT 3 4 Wastewater is treated and the We pollute water we use clean water is returned to the river. in our homes. The dirty Some of the waste removed from the water goes directly into water is composted and used as fertilizer. the sewer. page 6 SEWER Each WATERSHED on The Delaware Estuary the next page is a different color. See if you can locate the watershed that YOU live in! Morrisville Trenton Q. What exactly is the DELAWARE ESTUARY? Schuy lkil Norristown A. The Delaware Estuary includes l parts of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware, stretching approximately PA Philadelphia 133 miles from the falls of the Camden Delaware River near Trenton, NJ r ive to the mouth of the Delaware Bay R e between Cape May, NJ and r Wilmington a Cape Henlopen, DE. w a l e Estuaries are bodies of water where D NJ salt water from the ocean mixes with fresh water flowing off the land. They are very important feeding grounds, habitats (homes), and nurseries Q. What’s a WATERSHED? for fish, birds, reptiles, amphibians, mammals, and tons of other creatures. Delaware Bay ATLANTIC A. The WATERSHED of a stream is all of The wetlands in the Estuary clean out OCEAN the land that sheds water into that stream many pollutants from the water and Dover when it rains. When rain falls on land, help protect us from floods. it runs off to the nearest stream Cape May that is downhill.