What We Do In 2010 Is More Important Than What Happened In 2009

2009 is easily the worst year in the history of environmental protection programs in Pennsylvania given the dramatic cuts in the budget this year, and the last six, the layoff of DEP and DCNR workers and the prospect of even more layoffs in the future.

But that's not important. What's important is what we do about it in 2010.

2010 is a gubernatorial election year when thoughtful, committed candidates will have to lay out their recovery plans for environmental protection programs.

While the 26 percent cut in DEP's budget and the 18 percent cut in DCNR's budget are very large, it's not so much the dollars cut, but the reduction in the capacity of each agency to do their fundamental jobs, like reviewing permits, doing inspections, taking enforcement actions and policing natural gas drilling leases, that are at stake.

DEP has lost nearly 20 percent of its staff over the last seven years and at the same time over $980 million in environmental funding has been cut or diverted to other programs that could not get funding on their own.

No organization, private or public, can hope, or be expected, to do the same number of things, the same way with these kinds of cuts.

One symptom of these cuts is the permit review backlog DEP said was already building last year.

These circumstances call for a dramatic re-thinking of how to reform, implement and fund environmental protection programs to fit this new reality, without sacrificing environmental protection and restoration efforts or violating federal or state mandates.

It's about setting priorities, focusing on the core missions of the agencies and then taking steps to adequately fund and support those priority programs.

The environmental platforms of gubernatorial candidates must take these realities into account and recognize the challenges they face.

2010 is when funding for the 10-year old Growing Greener Program runs out and replacement funding must be found or projects to cleanup watersheds, reclaim abandoned mines, permanently preserve farmland and open space will all but end.

In the last seven years $50 million has been diverted from the Growing Greener Program to fund other programs and it has been expanded beyond its basic mission to fund alternative energy development projects, downtown redevelopment, historic preservation, funding for an energy efficient appliance tax holiday and provided funding to the Game and Fish and Boat Commissions. In addition, each county was provided with funding to do local projects in each of these and the original Growing Greener categories.

When refunding the program is considered, we need to decide what our real priorities are based on environmental restoration priorities, particularly where federal law mandates cleanups or federal resources can take up the slack, then fund those efforts.

2010 will see a renewed debate over how to adequately manage thousands of new Marcellus Shale natural gas wells and for discussing a realistic severance tax on natural gas production and how the proceeds will be distributed to communities and to help fund environmental protection/restoration programs.

The hundreds of new Marcellus Shale wells to be drilled next year is only the beginning of thousands of wells affecting potentially millions of acres in primarily rural, generally higher quality watersheds throughout Pennsylvania in the coming decades.

DCNR has already said it does not have the staff to police Marcellus Shale drilling on the State Forest land it is leasing for that purpose and that is only a small portion of the activity expected to occur.

Pennsylvania has seen this before-- timber clearcuts, coal mining and oil well drilling at the beginning of the last century and before affected huge swaths of the Commonwealth, many times with devastating impacts on the environment both temporary and permanent.

Fortunately, this isn't the 1800s or the early 1900s, we are dealing with different companies and different expectations and mindsets, but that does not diminish the impacts on communities or the potential for something to go wrong, as we have already seen in Dimock, Pa or in permit reviews.

We need an honest discussion of how a severance tax on natural gas production can support the communities with impacts and how it can help fund priority environmental restoration programs.

2010 will be when Pennsylvania and other Chesapeake Bay Watershed states, and watersheds throughout the state, will have to come up with real plans to reduce nutrient and sediment pollution in our watersheds and fund them.

More than half of Pennsylvania is included in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed, but all watersheds in the state are under federal mandates to cleanup nutrient pollution under Total Maximum Daily Load plans.

Clean water is fundamental not only to public health, but new business development and to Pennsylvania's number one and two industries-- agriculture and tourism.

The dilution and diversion of funding from Growing Greener and other water programs has left Pennsylvania without an effective or realistic strategy for meeting the federal mandates to cleanup our watersheds. That's why the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency had to step in and develop its own plan for cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay.

The challenge for 2010 will be to develop an effective cleanup program that focuses on Pennsylvania's real environmental problems and one that works side by side with the many partners involved in this process.

While state government retreated from its responsibility to restore and protect Pennsylvania's environment in 2009, there were plenty of watershed groups, local governments, businesses, conservation districts and non-profit groups who continued their good work.

This issue of PA Environment Digest recaps their efforts in 2009 by providing links to dozens of stories, videos and features on how these groups and their partners worked to improve Pennsylvania's environment.

These stories should inspire all of us to redouble our efforts in 2010 and not be stuck on what happened in 2009.

What we do in 2010 to address these issues is critical, because the future is the only thing we can change.