How to Fix Our (Somewhat) Sh**ty Delaware River

In a story for The Citizen last month, I looked at what it would take to make Philadelphia’s rivers clean enough for swimming. The answer I heard over and over: Stop the sewage overflows. When it storms, rain water overwhelms our combined sewer system, sending stormwater runoff and waste water from our homes directly into our rivers. Annually, the combined sewage overflows dump an average of 12.7 billion gallons of polluted water into the rivers. Sixty percent of the city has combined sewer systems.