04/15/24 - 66 New Stories - REAL Environmental & Conservation Leadership In PA: http://tinyurl.com/msuwtctm
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19,000 Miles Of Streams Polluted In PA, Billions Needed To Meet Clean Water Standards
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More than 19,000 miles of Pennsylvania streams and rivers do not meet clean water standards for drinking or fishing, according to the 2010 Pennsylvania Integrated Water Quality Monitoring and Assessment Report. Soil and nutrient-laden runoff from farms, lawns, parking lots, and roads and toxic metals and acidic discharge from abandoned coal mines are the main pollutants which cause stream degradation in Pennsylvania.
The numbers are huge: 5,510 miles polluted acid drainage from the legacy of coal mining; 5,484 miles polluted as a result of agricultural runoff; and 4,285 miles polluted as a result of urban and suburban runoff (includes road and construction runoff).
In the same report compiled in 2008, DEP identified 11,276 miles of waterways which did not meet water quality standards.
It is ironic the General Assembly and Gov. Rendell kicked off a special session of the General Assembly this week to consider transportation funding needs, when those related to green infrastructure and water quality dwarf the $3 billion "hole" they say is in the state transportation budget; especially when all 12 million Pennsylvanians depend on clean water for a healthy existence and the cost of not meeting federal clean water mandates will be to effectively stop development in two-thirds of the state.
For example, just the cost of wastewater plants and farmers to comply with Chesapeake Bay nutrient reductions has been estimated to be over $2 billion.
Total statewide drinking water and wastewater unmet needs for upgrades are estimated by the Governor's Sustainable Water Infrastructure Task Force to be over $18.2 billion-- $11 billion for drinking water systems and $7.2 billion for wastewater infrastructure.
The estimated cost of fixing combined sewer system overloads in just Allegheny County is estimated to be over $3 billion, some estimates as high as $21 billion.
Pennsylvania has 189,000 acres of unreclaimed abandoned mines, unsafe high walls leftover from historic mining and over 5,500 miles of mine water polluted streams that some estimates claim will cost as much as $15 billion to reclaim or make safe.
The state is expected to receive up to $1 billion in federal mine reclamation funds, but those funds will end in 2022.
In the face of these needs, the Department of Environmental Protection saw a 26 percent cut in its General Fund appropriation for this year and the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources had an 18 percent cut. The proposed budget for FY 2010-11 locks in those cuts and more for the next year.
Many of the 19 percent of staff and positions the Department of Environmental Protection has lost due to budget cuts and furloughs over the last eight years have been in water quality programs, specifically those staff previously assigned as DEP watershed specialists.
Many of those specialist positions now administer energy grants.
In all, over $1.3 billion in environmental funding has been taken away over the last eight years and used to balance the state budget or was diverted to other programs that could not pay for themselves.
There were some attempts to make up the environmental funding loses in water project funding in the last few years.
Additional funding for water infrastructure through the $800 million H20 Program to finance water and sewer system upgrades, flood protection and dam repairs and a $400 million water bond issue, as well as the creation of the $10 million REAP farm conservation tax credit program, but even that was cut in half last year.
The federal stimulus funds have also helped, in particular to address some non-point source pollution problems, but they are effectively gone.
But it doesn't even begin to make up for the funding that has been diverted to other programs and woefully inadequate for dealing with the need for green infrastructure to meet water quality standards.
These 19,000 miles of polluted waterways are our unsafe bridges and highways with potholes.
Related Stories
Link: Watersheds Rising - The Power Of Partnerships
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5/10/2010 |
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