2025 was a busy year for our Plan/Build Program! In this article, we’ll take a deeper dive into the plans and projects summarized in our 2025 Year In Review.
Fern Hollow Vision Plan Update
In 2022 we embarked on the Fern Hollow Vision Plan in the wake of the collapse of the Fern Hollow Bridge. After completing the Fern Hollow Vision Plan, in August of 2024, we began working with the U.S. Army Corp of Engineer’s (USACE) Pittsburgh District on the Fern Hollow Creek Comprehensive Water Resources Master Plan. The goal of this plan is to restore flow and function to Fern Hollow Creek and identify opportunities for stream reconnection and restoration. Throughout 2024 and 2025 we have worked closely with USACE to survey Fern Hollow and develop an existing conditions model as well as identify “alternatives” that could help to restore Fern Hollow Creek.
In November of 2025 we brought on local engineering design firm Ethos Collaborative to further refine the proposed alternatives that have been identified. We have worked with Ethos to review the work that USACE has done to date and work towards conceptual design drawings for public feedback. Stay tuned for updates in the spring!
Fern Hollow Creek flows! May 2025
Ripple: Nine Mile Run Environmental Justice Watershed Plan
In 2024 UpstreamPgh received funding from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection’s Growing Greener grants program to develop an Environmental Justice Watershed Plan for the Nine Mile Run Watershed. Technically, this is the first watershed plan that we have developed since being incorporated as a non-profit. The Nine Mile Run Rivers Conservation Plan from 1999 laid the groundwork for the formation of the Nine Mile Run Watershed Association in 2001, identifying opportunities for sustainable stormwater management, stream restoration and eventually restoring the headwaters of Nine Mile Run, labeled as the “tertiary” watershed in the original 1998 plan.
Much has changed since the 1998 plan, but many of the same issues that plagued Nine Mile Run in 1998 still persist today. The Nine Mile Run Environmental Justice Watershed Plan, aka “Ripple” seeks to address these lingering watershed issues while also recognizing the stark environmental injustices in our watershed and prioritizing investment in communities that have lacked any meaningful investment in the last 80 years.
Through the Ripple planning process we have worked with our talented team of Neighborhood Leaders, steering committee members and consultant team consisting of evolve:ea, Ethos Collaborative and Black Girl Green World to envision a better watershed centered in a people first approach to developing nature based solutions.
In 2025 we engaged people through canvassing, tabling, emailing and surveying to better understand the issues that people are experiencing in the Nine Mile Run watershed. We also hosted an in person workshop in October to review our findings and present project concepts for feedback.
Just as the 1998 plan helped to shape our first 25 years of work, the Ripple plan will guide our work for the next 25 years. We look forward to sharing the plan publicly soon, so stay tuned for more!
Investigating the decaying Nine Mile Run culvert outfall
Crescent Inlet Repair
In 2025, we partnered with Ethos Collaborative, Cronin Enterprises, Pittsburgh Public Schools, the City of Pittsburgh Department of Mobility and Infrastructure, and Pittsburgh Water to replace a broken stormwater inlet at our Crescent School Rain Garden, originally completed in 2015.
In November, the new cast iron curb inlet and a stormwater trench drain were installed, meeting city and water authority standards. The trench drain now captures runoff from the entire street, directing it into the rain gardens, and has doubled the area’s stormwater capture by diverting water that previously contributed to the combined sewer system.
Pre-construction monitoring indicated that the existing rain gardens were not being utilized to their full capacity. We are currently monitoring the project post-construction to determine if there is an increase in stormwater capture.
The project was made possible by funding from The Foundation for Pennsylvania Watersheds and Western Pennsylvania Coalition for Abandoned Mine Reclamation Quick Response repair program.
The Crescent School Rain Garden inlet before, during and after repair work.
Negley Run Watershed Task Force (NRWTF)
The Negley Run Watershed Task Force (NRWTF) was formed in 2017 out of the Living Waters of Larimer project. The NRWTF is an interdisciplinary collaboration to engage community, creatives, and professionals in urban ecosystem regeneration. With the City of Pittsburgh and related agencies, the Task Force will support innovative rainwater stewardship and conveyance strategies. The Task Force’s approach will introduce habitat, (bio)diversity, ecological function, and stormwater stewardship into municipal, agency, and private development plans and programs that may otherwise lack a holistic systems perspective to watershed conservation and management, and CSO and flood control. For many years the NRWTF was supported by the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy (PPC) through their Watershed Task Force program within six priority watersheds in the City of Pittsburgh. In 2025 PPC handed off the NRWTF to UpstreamPgh to continue working in the Negley Run Watershed.
UpstreamPgh convened three NRWTF meetings in 2025 to engage residents, non-profits, local utilities and government agencies in watershed events, projects and discussions. Throughout the year we featured presentations covering; Rain Reclaim, RAND’s Health and High Water Study, The Watersmith Guild’s First Waves of Negley Run, The Allegheny River Boulevard Preservation Management Plan, Carnegie Mellon University Senior Engineering Design Capstone project, and many more.
As we reflect on our work in 2025 we are excited to do more in Negley Run in 2026. UpstreamPgh will continue to convene the quarterly NRWTF meetings and partner on events throughout the watershed. The next NRWTF meeting will be on January 22nd at 6pm at the Kingsley Association. For more information or to get involved visit our Negley Run Watershed Task Force page.
Logo courtesy Living Waters Pittsburgh
