New report shows PA failing to reduce water pollution

I’ve written many times on this blog about pollution fouling our local waters and ultimately making its way to the Chesapeake Bay, and I’ve also written about the plan to clean up the Bay and its watershed by 2025. In this plan, the Bay states have committed to incremental goals, or milestones, that help track each state's progress in reducing water pollution from agriculture, stormwater, and wastewater.

Earlier this week, the Choose Clean Water Coalition (CCWC), of which we are state lead organization for Pennsylvania, and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation released their joint Milestones Report which details whether or not the Bay states are on track to meet their water pollution reduction goals.

There are reports for each of the Bay states and Washington, D.C. but I’ll focus on Pennsylvania. After a quick look at the report, it’s clear that Pennsylvania is way off track when it comes to reducing pollution from the agriculture and stormwater sectors. This is troubling because these two sectors contribute the largest amounts of pollution to our waters and the Bay. The one sector where Pennsylvania has met its goals is the wastewater sector.

However, there is still time for Pennsylvania to get back on track. To better manage stormwater, our Department of Environmental Protection should promote the formation of regional stormwater authorities to local governments. To reduce pollution from agriculture, increased outreach and technical and financial assistance to farmers can ensure increased adoption of conservation practices that will keep soils and nutrients in place and out of our waters.

The plan to clean up the Bay will only work if all sources of pollution do their fair share. Along with accountability measures, the plan contains consequences such as requiring further costly reductions from wastewater treatment plants if we cannot get the necessary pollution reductions from agriculture or stormwater.

Jen Quinn is central Pennsylvania outreach coordinator for PennFuture and is based in Harrisburg. She tweets @QuinnJen1.

VICTORY for clean water in Pennsylvania -- again!!

The plan to clean up the Chesapeake Bay has survived a second attempt to quash it. This is a big win, not just for the Bay and the ongoing efforts for its restoration but also for the Pennsylvania streams and rivers that are being cleaned up as part of that restoration work.

In 2013, Federal Judge Sylvia Rambo rejected the arguments made by big agricultural and developers' lobby groups that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had exceeded its authority when it developed the Chesapeake Bay TMDL (Total Maximum Daily Load), or pollution diet, in 2010. These same deep-pocketed lobby groups appealed this decision -- and lost again.

On Monday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed Judge Rambo’s decision and ruled that the Bay TMDL is fully authorized by the Clean Water Act. This victory makes it clear that Pennsylvania and the other Bay states should continue -- even accelerate -- the work they have done to reduce water pollution.  

Pennsylvania has thousands of miles of polluted streams and rivers where residents cannot fish or swim or enjoy the economic and environmental benefits of clean water. After two failed legal challenges, we can only hope that more time and money won’t be wasted on legal challenges as there’s a lot of work to be done and money could be better spent on outreach and education, technical assistance to farmers, and implementation of conservation practices.

PennFuture, along with other environmental groups, was an intervener in both cases.

Jen Quinn is central Pennsylvania outreach coordinator for PennFuture and is based in Harrisburg. She tweets @QuinnJen1.

More opportunities for the public to weigh in on stormwater pollution

In November 2014, PennFuture won a key victory for how Pennsylvania manages the issue of polluted stormwater entering our waterways. Between now and July 29, the public can provide input to the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) about the draft general permit for discharges into municipal separate stormwater systems, known as PAG-13. Many of the proposed changes to PAG-13 were the direct result of our settlement in the 2014 case.

Both the state and federal governments have made a priority to address polluted runoff from rain and snow into our storm sewers. This runoff carries street debris, oil, fertilizer, chemicals and trash with it, all untreated as it enters rivers such as the Schuylkill, Delaware, Susquehanna, and thousands of streams and rivers across Pennsylvania. This issue is part of the municipal separate storm sewer system (MS4) state program, and the public comment period on the new program allows you -- the public, both as individuals or watershed and conservation organizations -- to provide helpful information to DEP. 

A draft of the revised PAG-13 is available from DEP’s website: http://www.elibrary.dep.state.pa.us/dsweb/View/Collection-12476
and the Pennsylvania Bulletin pages 2674-2675 has full instructions for submitting comments. DEP also offers this background on municipal stormwater issues and more on the comment process. Finally, our recent blog post on the topic explains the details of the settlement and what it means for water quality.

Kate Gibbons is northeastern Pennsylvania outreach coordinator for PennFuture and is based in Wilkes-Barre.

Polluted runoff = dirty water. Our recommendations to solve the problem.

In an effort to bring some much-needed attention to the Chesapeake Bay, PennFuture included Bay cleanup efforts in its recent report highlighting policies and action Gov. Tom Wolf and his administration can take to protect our environment.

The Chesapeake Bay isn’t on the minds of most Pennsylvanians, mainly because we don’t see the Bay every day, fish or swim there regularly, or rely on its oysters and crabs to fuel our economy. But it should be on our minds because it’s polluted -- and a significant amount of that pollution is coming from Pennsylvania’s rivers and streams.

In order to achieve a healthy Bay (and clean water here in Pennsylvania), states within the Chesapeake Bay watershed have committed to reduce pollutants enough to remove the Bay from the list of impaired waters by 2025, and to be 60 percent toward that goal by 2017. So far, Pennsylvania has had great success in reducing pollution from the wastewater treatment sector, but has fallen behind in meeting pollution reduction goals in the agriculture and stormwater sectors.

In an effort to get Pennsylvania back on track and achieve our clean water goals, we’re urging the Governor's administration to address significant sources of pollution -- agriculture, wastewater, and stormwater -- so that no single sector is responsible for more than its fair share.

Recommendations include:

Agriculture

Increased oversight of agricultural operations by the DEP; enforcement of all regulatory requirements; sufficient funding for DEP outreach and education; and technical and financial assistance to the agricultural community.

Stormwater

The DEP should take a leadership role in working with local governments to help promote formation of stormwater authorities and should develop a model stormwater fee ordinance to ensure funding for local stormwater management. See pg. 23 of the report for more details.

The DEP must ensure effective post-construction stormwater management (PCSM) by eliminating the PCSM exemption for activities that “require restoration.” See pg.13 of the report for more details.

Recently, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released an assessment of Pennsylvania’s Animal Agriculture Program, i.e., they reviewed DEP’s Agricultural Erosion and Sediment Control Program and the Manure and Nutrient Management Programs, among others. EPA found the programs lacked consistency and sufficient resources and found the data tracking and reporting systems lacking.  Shortfalls in the agricultural sector are especially problematic, given Pennsylvania expects to achieve three-quarters of its pollution reductions from agriculture. 

We’ve made our recommendations, and EPA has echoed our concerns. Now, the question remains: Is anyone listening?

Jennifer Quinn is central Pennsylvania outreach coordinator for PennFuture and is based in Harrisburg. She tweets @QuinnJen1.
 

Guest post: Why the Susquehanna River matters

When I go fishing in the Susquehanna River just across from my downtown Wilkes-Barre college campus, I can't help but notice large amounts of trash -- from bait containers to beer cans and even tires or computer chairs. I also notice the stormwater drains that run right into the Susquehanna River. These carry pollution and trash into the river which ultimately makes its way into the Chesapeake Bay, into which the Susquehanna flows. The Chesapeake Bay is the nation’s largest estuary, with some 17 million Americans living within its watershed. The Chesapeake Bay Foundation has valued the Bay at over one trillion dollars when you add up fishing, tourism, property values, and shipping activities. Keeping the Susquehanna clean will not only help the river but the Chesapeake Bay itself and all those who live downstream.

Pollution affects the water quality which in turn affects the wildlife that makes its home in the Bay including blue crabs, oysters, menhaden, and rock bass. Urban development and storm water runoff in Wilkes-Barre and other communities along the water contribute to the Chesapeake Bay’s dead zones. The nutrient build-up caused by storm water and agricultural runoff creates algae blooms that consume oxygen and create dead zones when the algae decompose. In turn, over the years, the blue crab and oyster populations have also diminished.

Millions of dollars have been poured into multiple projects to help clean up the Chesapeake Bay and the tributaries that are located within its watershed. Some of these projects are funded through the Chesapeake Stewardship Fund, which has restored over 6,000 acres of wetlands and almost 1,500 miles of forest buffers in the Bay watershed. Plans like these are aimed at protecting the Bay, which is a large part of the economies of Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania.

Clean up of our environment is never too expensive. Citizens such as you and me are capable of walking down to a tributary like the Susquehanna and cleaning up a stretch of the river. It's not back-breaking work to walk a few feet and pick up some trash. You’re doing more damage to yourself by leaving the trash there and allowing it to pollute your water than you would if you took five minutes for a bit of clean up. Protecting our rivers and the Bay is the right thing to do -- and it makes good economic sense.

Christian Mazzocchi is a PennFuture intern and senior at King's College, Wilkes-Barre who will receive a Bachelor of Arts in Environmental Studies with a double minor in geography and history in December. He enjoys fishing in the mighty Susquehanna in his spare time. As part of his major, he spent a week in 2013 in the Chesapeake Bay doing field work and learning about solutions to protect the Bay's ecosystem.

Cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay brings billions in benefits

We all value clean air, clean water, and nature’s beauty, but we often overlook the actual dollar value of the services which nature provides for us. Recently, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation released a report, The Economic Benefits of Cleaning Up the Chesapeake Bay, which assesses these benefits and gives them a current dollar value as it determines the increased value given full implementation of the plan to clean up the Bay (which has been discussed previously on this blog).

In 2009, before the Bay cleanup plan was developed, the land and waters of the Bay region provided annual benefits of $107.2 billion in the form of air and water filtering, agriculture, seafood production, increased property values, and protection from hurricanes and flooding.

Once the Bay cleanup plan is fully implemented, the value of these same benefits will increase by $22.5 billion every year. For Pennsylvania, this translates to an annual increase in the value of natural services by $6.2 billion, from $32.6 billion to $38.8 billion. This significant increase is driven largely by the enhanced value of the water supply -- both quantity and quality -- for drinking, agriculture, and industry, valued at $1.3 billion annually, and a $2 billion annual increase due to improved aesthetics and the ability to attract people to live, work, and recreate in the region.

Conversely, failing to clean up the Bay would reduce the natural benefits Pennsylvania receives by $1.8 billion annually, and increased pollution throughout the Bay region would reduce natural benefits by $5.6 billion every year.

Given the billions of dollars in benefits that cleaning up the Bay will bring, it’s hard to believe some folks are still opposed to cleanup efforts. It will take time, effort, and resources from all levels of government and various sectors of society to implement the Bay cleanup plan, but with a rate of return more than four times the cost, this one is a no-brainer.

Jennifer Quinn is central Pennsylvania outreach coordinator for PennFuture and is based in Harrisburg. She tweets @QuinnJen1.

Pennsylvania is making progress, but needs to do more for clean water

The Chesapeake Bay Clean Water Blueprint is made up of the Bay pollution limits (TMDL) and state-specific plans to achieve these pollution limits. The Bay states committed to reduce pollutants enough to remove the Bay from the nation’s impaired waters list by 2025, and to be 60 percent of the way to that goal by 2017.

In order to stay on track, Bay states committed to two-year goals -- or milestones -- which allow progress to be measured with respect to the larger 2017 and 2025 pollution reduction goals by taking a critical look at the implementation rates of pollution reducing practices and programs.

Yesterday, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and the Choose Clean Water Coalition, of which PennFuture serves as the lead organization for Pennsylvania, released their report evaluating Pennsylvania’s progress. We evaluated eight practices/programs: five from the agricultural sector, two from the stormwater sector, and one from the wastewater sector. Pennsylvania achieved its 2013 goals for four of the eight practices, however, particularly concerning is the gap between what has been done and what needs to be done by 2017.

We’ve made great progress when it comes to permitting wastewater treatment facilities but we’re struggling with agricultural practices and urban and suburban stormwater management. We’re only halfway to our 2017 goal for installation of forest buffers, one of the most cost-effective practices to improve water quality. To meet its 2017 goal, Pennsylvania needs to install 50 new acres of forest buffers per day. You can read more about each of the practices here. 

The Chesapeake Bay Clean Water Blueprint has given us a clear path to clean water. While we’ve made progress, we still have a lot of work ahead of us. In order to meet our goals, we need cooperation and collaboration between government, industry, and citizens as well as a sense of urgency and dedication to cleaning up our waters.

Reducing pollution isn’t just good for the Chesapeake Bay, it’s good for Pennsylvania. By reducing the amount of pollution in the Susquehanna and its tributaries, we’re protecting our drinking water, improving fish habitat, and increasing the number of places we can safely swim and boat. It’s pretty simple -- you can’t have a clean Chesapeake Bay without a clean Susquehanna River.

Jennifer Quinn is central Pennsylvania outreach coordinator for PennFuture and is based in Harrisburg. She tweets @QuinnJen1.

Rain barrels: Helping to solve Harrisburg's stormwater problems

Last year, Harrisburg resident Jean Cutler established the Harrisburg Rain Barrel Coalition (HRBC) to lessen stormwater runoff in the city that contributes significant pollution to local streams and the Susquehanna River and causes localized flooding and sewer overflows. Rain barrels are a simple, cost-effective option for managing stormwater and can be easily attached to downspouts to capture roof runoff. The stored water can be used to water plants and gardens and can help reduce water bills. 

Image: Harrisburg Rain Barrel Coalition

Over the past year, the HRBC has held multiple workshops at various locations throughout the city, culminating in the well-attended Rain Barrel Festival. During these workshops, participants learn how to install and maintain their rain barrels and they also learn about their role in water quality protection and stormwater management. The Coalition uniquely combines artistic expression with environmental issues and allows workshop participants to have fun while creating awareness, as each participant can personalize their barrel. 
 

Image:Harrisburg Rain Barrel Coalition

But the HRBC is more than just rain barrels. By engaging and educating citizens and local government, the Coalition is working to develop and implement multiple green infrastructure practices, such as rain gardens, green roofs, permeable pavers, and increased urban tree planting. All of these practices reduce polluted runoff more cost-effectively than traditional methods and provide additional benefits including neighborhood beautification and increased property values. The HRBC also participated in the planning and presentation of the 2013 Environmental Leadership Training program, which consisted of 8 courses and graduated 24 environmental stewards and advocates.

There are plans for future rain barrel workshops, a demonstration rain garden, and additional environmental leadership training. Upcoming HRBC events include a tree planting in Harrisburg and rain barrel painting at the upcoming Wetlands Festival at Wildwood Park. To learn more about the HRBC or to volunteer, contact Jean Cutler at jecutler32 at gmail dot com.

Effective stormwater management is essential to meeting Pennsylvania’s pollution limits under the Chesapeake Bay Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL). Periodically, we will feature the work of other clean water advocates in the watershed as we work toward mutual goals and explore collaboration.

Jen Quinn is central Pennsylvania outreach coordinator for PennFuture and is based in Harrisburg. She specializes in water quality issues.

Mount Olympus of water pollution?

While we're riveted to the screen for Olympic skiing, snowboarding, and ice dancing, the back story of the Winter Games in Sochi haunts like a missed gate on the slalom course. On February 12 in Krasnodar, Russia, environmental activist Evgeny Vitishko was sentenced to three years in prison after being convicted of spray-painting a fence. Vitishko is part of Environmental Watch on North Caucasus, which has been monitoring the environmental impact of the development of Olympics facilities and infrastructure.

Significant devastation has accompanied Sochi's rapid development and has been widely reported in news outlets around the world. It's destroyed well water for a village, buried a migratory bird wetland, and polluted the Mzymta River -- the largest river supplying the Black Sea and its complex ecosystem.

Activists who've drawn attention to the devastation face intimidation and arrests in a region without an independent judiciary and where freedom of the press is ranked as nonexistent. Refugee families from the Krasnodar region who fled persecution and settled in Pennsylvania cities such as Lancaster and Scranton a decade ago likely can relate. While the Games have brought international attention to human rights and environmental violations, the problems will persist well after the Sochi torch is doused.

Here in Pennsylvania, we are no strangers to water pollution, with 16,000 miles of impaired streams, and mine drainage, stormwater and agricultural runoff affecting our water all the way to the Chesapeake Bay. But the Games' avoidable ecological cost should give us pause, as activists are jailed even while world attention is on the region. After the Games end, environmental and human rights groups are going to need lots of help to keep the spotlight on this and how to begin to recover.

Kate Gibbons is northeast Pennsylvania outreach coordinator for PennFuture, based in Wilkes-Barre.

Twenty-one states fear clean water

Last September, Federal Judge Sylvia Rambo rejected the arguments made by big agriculture and developers' lobby groups that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had exceeded its authority and was trampling states’ rights when it developed the Chesapeake Bay TMDL (Total Maximum Daily Load), or pollution diet, in 2010. In her opinion, the TMDL exemplified cooperative federalism between the states and EPA at every stage of the process.

A  TMDL is required for any waterbody impaired by pollution, and establishes the maximum amount of pollution a waterbody can receive. The Bay TMDL limits the amount of nitrogen, phosphorus, and sediment in the Bay and its tributaries. These pollutants come from a number of sources including agricultural operations, poorly managed stormwater, and wastewater treatment facilities. Excess nitrogen and phosphorus feed algal blooms that block sunlight to underwater grasses, destroying important habitat, and the blooms use up oxygen when they die and decompose, resulting in dead zones that kill fish, crabs, and other aquatic life.

Judge Rambo’s decision sent a clear message to the six states in the Bay watershed -- they should continue working toward their clean water goals -- goals that, after 30 years of insufficient bay restoration efforts, might actually be met through the new, collaborative federal-state effort.

Not too long after the decision, the deep-pocketed farm groups and developers appealed, and just last week, the attorneys general from 21 states, mostly from the Mississippi River valley and Midwest, but some from as far away as Alaska and Wyoming, filed a joint amicus curiae, or friend of the court brief, supporting the appeal and opposing the Bay states’ efforts to clean up local rivers and the Bay. These states fear that a successful TMDL in the Bay could serve as a model for clean-up efforts in their watersheds, and they just might have to control pollution -- and, ultimately, be stuck with clean water.

Jen Quinn is central Pennsylvania outreach coordinator for PennFuture, based in Harrisburg. She specialized in water quality issues.

Rain rain go away: It's not that simple with stormwater runoff

The Chesapeake Bay watershed covers 64,000 square miles, including parts of six states, and is home to more than 17 million people. The Bay's land to water ratio (14:1) is the largest of any coastal water body in the world and is why our actions on the land have such big impacts on the Bay's health.

Over the past 30 years, cooperation between governments, businesses, and individuals has reduced many types of pollution in the Bay and its tributaries.  However, one major type of water pollution continues to grow: untreated stormwater runoff from roads, roofs, and other impermeable surfaces. This growth is a result of development spreading throughout the region.

Every four years, an area about the size of Washington, D.C. (nearly 40,000 acres) is converted from field and forest to impermeable roads, parking lots, and buildings. And just one inch of rain falling on one acre of paved surface results in 27,000 gallons of runoff.

When runoff from storms sweeps across paved surfaces, it collects a mix of pollutants including trash, oil, nitrogen, phosphorous, herbicides, bacteria from pet waste, and even toxic metals such as zinc, lead, and cadmium.  Pesticides have been found in 97 percent of runoff samples and at levels high enough to harm aquatic life 83 percent of the time. Flooding damage from uncontrolled runoff including flooded basements, sinkholes, and eroded roads and buildings causes $150 million per year in damages in the Susquehanna River drainage.

Fortunately, local governments can control runoff pollution with relatively simple, cost-effective practices. They include planting trees to replace natural filters removed during development and installing retention ponds to catch and filter runoff as well as roadside ditches (swales) with plants to absorb pollutants and barrels to collect rain from roofs. Developers can construct buildings with green roofs and parking lots of porous pavement. And communities can create more green spaces to allow soils to absorb rainfall.

Practices like these not only manage stormwater, they increase property values and recreational opportunities and also provide wildlife habitat and improved aesthetics. Ultimately, stormwater management can make our communities better places to live.

Jen Quinn is central Pennsylvania outreach coordinator for PennFuture, based in Harrisburg. She specializes in water quality issues.

Clearing the way for clean water

     In September, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released the report Connectivity of Streams and Wetlands to Downstream Waters:A Review and Synthesis of the Scientific Evidence (draft) for public comment. This report will serve as scientific support for an upcoming EPA rulemaking to clarify the muddied jurisdictional waters of the Clean Water Act (CWA).

     The scope of the CWA was intended to be as broad as its purpose: to “restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the Nation’s waters.” The Clean Water Act sought to achieve this goal by reducing the discharge of pollutants into streams, lakes, rivers, wetlands and other waterways. In particular, Section 404 of the CWA regulates the discharge of dredged and fill materials into “navigable waters” of the United States, which established the basis for federal protection of our nation's wetlands.

     Over the past decade, however, a series of Supreme Court decisions interpreting the definition of "navigable waters" have removed some waters from federal protection, and caused confusion about which waters and wetlands remain protected. Among other things, the decisions clouded whether certain wetlands had a sufficient connection to downstream waters so as to allow the federal government to protect those wetlands. 

     In response to these decisions, the EPA and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers developed a draft rule to clarify the federal government's jurisdiction over wetlands under the Clean Water Act. And that's where the Connectivity Report comes in. 

     The Report reviews more than 1,000 peer reviewed pieces of scientific literature, and will form the scientific basis that supports the new rule. Its main conclusions are:

• Streams, regardless of their size or how frequently they flow, are connected to, and have important effects, on downstream waters.


• Wetlands and open waters in floodplains of streams and rivers, and in riparian areas, are integrated with streams and rivers.

    Waters are connected! Who would have guessed? I think many of us have believed this for quite some time, but now we have the science to prove it.

This new rule should eliminate the uncertainty around the CWA’s jurisdiction and allow it to fulfill its purpose by protecting streams and wetlands from pollution and development.

Getting to the point -- and nonpoint

In the wake of Judge Sylvia Rambo's September 13 decision upholding the Chesapeake Bay TMDL (read: Bay pollution "diet"), and its subsequent appeal less than a month later, you've probably heard the words "point source" and "nonpoint source" more than a few times. But what do these terms mean? Well, a point source (of pollution), as defined by the Clean Water Act, is "any discernible, confined, and discrete conveyance." For example, a pipe, ditch, channel, tunnel, well, or container can be a point source, just to name a few. Given that definition, you'd think the definition for a nonpoint source (of pollution) would be equally technical and concise. However, you would be wrong. A nonpoint source is any source of water pollution that does not meet the legal definition of a point source. Is that clear? About as clear as mud. It is pollution from everywhere else.

http://soilscience.info

Nonpoint source pollution is caused by rainfall and snowmelt moving over and through the ground. Picture a farmer's field, your own lawn or driveway, or a parking lot. As the runoff moves, it picks up and carries excess fertilizers, pesticides, oil, grease, salt, sediment, and whatever else may be on the ground, to our rivers, lakes and ground waters.

Photo by halseide

Nonpoint source pollution remains Pennsylvania's, and the nation's, largest contributor to water quality problems. It's why 20 percent of Pennsylvania's streams and 50 percent of its lakes are polluted. And that's why the Chesapeake Bay TMDL is so important. The Bay's pollution diet sets limits for the amount of pollutants that can enter the Bay and the only way to achieve those limits is to significantly reduce the amount of nonpoint source pollution in the Bay's tributaries. 

   The Clean Water Act (CWA) has done a pretty good job of regulating point source pollutants. The Cuyahoga River is no longer flammable and Lake Erie is no longer dead, thanks to the CWA. But it hasn't done a whole lot to regulate nonpoint sources because nonpoint source regulation has been left largely to the states with little federal oversight. However, developing the Bay pollution diet required the states and federal government to work together to set pollution limits, develop watershed implementation plans, and milestones to track progress.

This cooperative federalism, and resulting TMDL, represents the best chance for clean water in Pennsylvania and the Chesapeake Bay.

Autumn onslaught

This beautiful, warm October and its kaleidoscope of fallen leaves brings to mind an aspect of stormwater pollution. Yet it might not be one we think about until we end up driving on a flooded street due to sodden oak, maple and willow leaves clogging storm drains and increasing the load on our waterways.

Google "Pennsylvania leaf collection" and you'll find, as I did, the myriad ways our statewide municipalities address (or don't address) fall leaves. We're the sixth most populous state in the nation and we have roughly 17 million acres of forest cover, some seen here in a fall view of Frances Slocum State Park in Luzerne County. Yes, our fall foliage can easily become an autumn onslaught.

Recycling leaves and grass into mulch on your lawn as well as encouraging community pickup and large-scale mulching are a couple of options, along with these tips for managing fall leaves. The Lancaster County, Pa. Conservation District has also produced this guide to managing stormwater on your property. Finally, the poetry of autumn is a good accompaniment to any yard work on a fall afternoon.

VICTORY: Huge win for clean waterways, in Pennsylvania and beyond

In a major win for the health of local waterways, a federal judge ruled on September 13 that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has the authority to set limits on pollution entering the Chesapeake Bay. PennFuture was part of a coalition of public interest groups that joined the lawsuit to help defend the EPA’s cleanup plan and the decades-long, collaborative process that led to its development. We are also the Pennsylvania state lead for 40-plus members of the Choose Clean Water Coalition (CCWC).

Read on for what happened and why this is so significant. This blog entry is reposted courtesy of the Choose Clean Water Coalition and is authored by CCWC director, Hilary Harp Falk.


http://choosecleanwater.org/press-room/blog/chesapeake-bay-clean-up-wins-big-in-court-a-time-to-celebrate-and-a-time-to-move-forward/

Chesapeake Bay cleanup wins big in court: A time to celebrate and a time to move forward

Friday afternoon around 3:30 p.m., the emails started rolling in with two words: “We won." The history of the Chesapeake Bay clean up is long, with many twists and turns, but on Friday a judge in Pennsylvania confirmed that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has the authority to develop a pollution limit for the Chesapeake Bay and that history, science and law all support its development. This is a huge win for the Chesapeake Bay and the 17 million people in the region who rely on clean water.

From our friends at the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, National Wildlife Federation, Defenders of Wildlife, Midshore Riverkeeper Conservancy, and PennFuture to Jefferson County (WV) Public Service District, the National Associations of  Clean Water Agencies, the Maryland Association of Clean Water Agencies, the Virginia Association of Clean Water Agencies and the Pennsylvania Municipal Authorities Association, interveners in the case helped EPA demonstrate that pollution limits for the Chesapeake Bay established in December 2010 are within the Agency’s authority, based on sound science, and that the Farm Bureau and Homebuilders - the industry groups that had brought the suit in 2011 - had ample time to review and comment on the proposed limits.

Judge Rambo said in her decision that the Chesapeake Bay Partnership undertook significant efforts to preserve the framework of cooperative federalism as envisioned by the Clean Water Act, and that EPA did not unlawfully infringe on the Bay states’ rights because the Clean Water Act is an “all-compassing” and “comprehensive” statute that envisions a strong federal role for ensuring pollution reduction. After 31 years, the Clean Water Act has been proven to be the right way to go and, once again, this partnership between federal and state governments has stood up as the best way to get clean water.

Now, it is time to move on and get back to work. We still do not have the results that people want and deserve: Clean water, fishable rivers and streams, and the economic and environmental benefits that they bring. With pollution limits firmly in place, we can go back to taking the necessary actions to reduce pollution and protect the water on which millions of people depend.

The Farm Bureau may appeal this ruling. We hope not. Money would be better spent implementing conservation practices. We need to move forward with the work ahead of us so that future generations will have clean water.

We've received the following celebratory statements from interveners in the case:

Will Baker, president of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation: “This is a great day for clean water in the region, there could be no better outcome. CBF and our partners respectfully salute the thoughtful legal decision-making by Judge Rambo, the presiding federal judge in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania.”

Larry Schweiger, president and CEO of the National Wildlife Federation: “As one of the 17 million people who live near a river or stream flowing to the Chesapeake Bay, I am thrilled that the court ruled in favor of clean water, fishable rivers and safe places for children to swim. The court made it clear the agency is authorized to continue doing what is necessary to reduce pollution entering the Chesapeake Bay and protect the water that sustains people, wildlife and livelihoods. The science-based standards create accountability and are leading to real results.”

Tim Junkin, executive director of the Midshore Riverkeeper Conservancy: “Everyone -- farmers and homeowners, rural and urban -- all realize clean water is vital to their community and to their economy. Midshore Riverkeeper Conservancy joined this lawsuit to represent the voice of rural areas and small towns. We don’t know what purpose this suit was meant to serve but it was not in most people’s interests. We are thrilled that EPA has prevailed. It is a critical time and the clean water blueprint offers a new approach and requires that everyone does their fair share to clean up our local waters.”

Michael Senatore, vice president for conservation law at Defenders of Wildlife: “The court’s decision is great news for fish and wildlife that depend on a healthy Bay for their survival. If implemented properly, the rule has the potential to significantly improve the ecological health of the Bay for the benefit of wildlife and people alike.”

Jim Abernathy, interim president and CEO of PennFuture: "Friday’s federal court decision clears the way for EPA and the states in the Chesapeake Bay watershed to carry out their responsibilities to clean up our polluted streams. We will continue our work to protect streams and rivers in Pennsylvania for the benefit of our state’s environment and citizens."