Our Mission
Our Sewershed
The Mon Water Project is home to 4 Mile Run (4MR), a watershed/sewershed located four miles from the point in Pittsburgh on the Monongahela River. Both sewers and cricks in the Oakland, Greenfield, Squirrel Hill, Schenley Park, and Hazelwood neighborhoods flow through this pipe system. This pipe system is hidden beneath our feet, under roads, houses and sidewalks.
On dry days, the water in these pipes flows down under Greenfield Avenue, making its way through larger and larger pipes, deep underground, to the Allegheny County Sewer Authority (ALCOSAN). That is our regional WasteWater Treatment facility. There it is treated and released in the Ohio River.
On Wet days, the entire system's contents flow out into the Monongahela River through the M-29 outfall, a big discharge pipe, under Hazelwood Green. Similar, smaller unnamed streams and pipes are under and throughout Hazelwood. They discharge on wet days to individual outfalls counting up to M-40, near Glen Hazel. Combined, these systems make up the Monongahela peninsula of Pittsburgh and the Basin for the Mon Water Project.
Our Watershed
Water is constantly involved in any single stage of the Water Cycle. Be it rain, condensation, snow, or a flowing river, water is on the move. When it is moving, water always flows downhill.
In the beginning it may only be the trickle of a spring, coming up from the groundwater. As you follow the flow of tributaries of that crick over hollows and hills, a basin ridge is formed, outlining the Watershed. Watersheds are the collection points for all water as it flows off the land into a river system.
In an urban and developed city like Pittsburgh, those watersheds are still here, however they now are hidden below our feet, in pipes. We call them sewersheds, and they connect us, from the highest hill to the point of our three rivers. Sewersheds follow all the same rules as watersheds.
The Mon Water Project will focus on the watershed basins, flowing through several sewershed, along the Monongahela River.
