The funds awarded to our partner Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation (PIDC) will spur the assessment and remediation of the riverfront site, which spans slightly less than an acre and is currently contaminated with lead and and semi-volatile organic compounds after decades of industrial use. Once the land has been remediated, plans will advance for major new riverfront developments: the Garden’s new Field Station & Welcome Center, complete with a realignment of the Bartram’s Mile Trail to the newly accessible riverfront, and a portion of PIDC’s Lower Schuylkill Biotech Campus.

Speaking at the event, Executive Director Maitreyi Roy noted, “Safe and clean land opens up opportunities for new businesses, green spaces, and community projects . . . . Our neighborhood will thrive, not just survive. The powerful message is that no community should bear the brunt of environmental degradation and that everyone deserves to live in a safe and healthy environment.”

Learn more about the event and the EPA’s national brownfield remediation program in recent news coverage from the Philadelphia Inquirer, WHYY, the Guardian, and Delaware Currents.

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Coming Soon to 56^th Street

Have you heard? A new Ecosystems Education Center and Freshwater Mussel Hatchery will be built at Bartram’s Garden within the next few years.

Native freshwater mussels are not the kinds of mussels that we eat, but each adult mussel can filter up to 20 gallons of water per day while creating a nutrient-rich riverbed to help prevent erosion and support healthy conditions for other plants and animals. Thanks to regulations, scientific research, and dedicated residents throughout the region, rivers like the Schuylkill and the Delaware are now healthy enough to support a range of plants and animals, including native mussels. The new hatchery, led by Partnership for the Delaware Estuary, will raise up to 500,000 mussels per year to be restored throughout our local streams, wetlands, and waterways, where they can then use their natural filtering to help clean the water even further.

The adjacent Ecosystems Education Center will create a new home for hands-on, year-round learning, making, and sharing at Bartram’s Garden thanks to a teaching kitchen and flexible indoor and outdoor classroom spaces.

A collaborative team of local leaders, staff members, and Board members from both organizations selected the Philadelphia-based architecture firm WRT Design to design the new building. These initial renderings were shared at a public Zoom meeting on June 1 and will continue to be refined this year.

Questions or ideas? Contact info@bartramsgarden.org to let us know what you think!

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