http://www.pennenvironment.org/in-the-news/environmental-health/healthy-communities http://www.pennenvironment.org/in-the-news/environmental-health/healthy-communities/landfill-fee-ruling-could-can-cambria-recycling-money By SUSAN EVANS The Tribune-Democrat Recycling http://www.pennenvironment.org/in-the-news/environmental-health/healthy-communities/landfill-fee-ruling-could-can-cambria-recycling-money Sun, 20 Jul 2008 16:07:55 -0500 http://www.pennenvironment.org/in-the-news/environmental-health/healthy-communities/legislature-needs-to-grant-counties-the-authority-to-fund-environmentally-programs-through-a-tax http://www.pennenvironment.org/in-the-news/environmental-health/healthy-communities/legislature-needs-to-grant-counties-the-authority-to-fund-environmentally-programs-through-a-tax Sun, 20 Jul 2008 15:53:49 -0500 http://www.pennenvironment.org/in-the-news/environmental-health/healthy-communities/legislature-must-repair-measure-to-enable-county-recycling-programs Because http://www.pennenvironment.org/in-the-news/environmental-health/healthy-communities/legislature-must-repair-measure-to-enable-county-recycling-programs Wed, 16 Jul 2008 07:34:29 -0500 http://www.pennenvironment.org/in-the-news/environmental-health/healthy-communities/congressman-gets-a-green-thumbs-up Congressman Joseph Sestak, D-7, of Edgmont, was lauded by the state http://www.pennenvironment.org/in-the-news/environmental-health/healthy-communities/congressman-gets-a-green-thumbs-up Thu, 10 Jul 2008 07:30:07 -0500 http://www.pennenvironment.org/in-the-news/environmental-health/healthy-communities/lawmakers-ok-funding-for-hazardous-cleanup Work will continue on 11 hazardous waste sites in Berks County after state lawmakers struck a last-minute deal to fund a statewide cleanup program Thursday. The agreement gives the state Department of Environmental Protection $18 million in funding for cleanups through June and $40 million annually through 2011, state officials said. Also, 130 DEP workers threatened with a furlough over the stalled legislative talks will stay on the job. Gov. Ed Rendell is expected to sign the bill. But lawmakers did not find a dedicated source of funding for cleanup projects, said David Maser, executive director for PennEnvironment. That means every three or four years, lawmakers will revisit the issue of finding money for hazardous waste sites, Maser said. “These sites are not going away,” he said. “The cleanup of these sites take decades.” In Berks, the DEP was providing money and assistance for the cleanups, including some supervised by the federal Environmental Protection Agency. The Berks sites: •Crossly Farm site in Hereford Township. Groundwater is contaminated with a known carcinogen commonly called TCE. •Algonquin Chemical in Hamburg and Windsor Township. The DEP has been cleaning groundwater contaminated with TCE. •The former Armorcast plant in Birdsboro. Fuel and oil at the plant contaminated groundwater. •Berks Sand Pit in Longswamp Township. DEP and EPA continue to monitor groundwater that was contaminated with industrial solvents. •Clements Landfill in Ontelaunee and Perry townships. The DEP is monitoring groundwater contamination. •Cryo Chem Inc. in Douglass and Earl townships. The DEP will take over monitoring a treatment system in 2008. •Five Locks Road in Perry Township. The DEP evaluated an area along the Schuylkill River where battery casings were buried. •Monocacy Creek groundwater contamination in eastern Berks. The DEP is looking to investigate possible well-water contamination. •Oreville Quarry in Longswamp Township. The DEP is maintaining residential wastewater treatment systems. •Ryeland Road in Heidelberg Township. The DEP was paying for a portion of lead and arsenic cleanup in the soil. •Topton well contamination. The DEP is paying to treat chemical contamination in several wells around Topton. http://www.pennenvironment.org/in-the-news/environmental-health/healthy-communities/lawmakers-ok-funding-for-hazardous-cleanup Mon, 17 Dec 2007 09:29:50 -0600 http://www.pennenvironment.org/in-the-news/environmental-health/healthy-communities/pa_-house-rescues-a-cleanup-program An environmental crisis has been averted in Pennsylvania, as the state House yesterday approved - unanimously and with stunning speed - a three-year funding plan for the state's hazardous-sites cleanup program. Passage of the measure, endorsed by the state Senate in October, came just 19 days before the fund for remediation and monitoring of contaminated properties was to run out of money. As many as 130 employees of the Department of Environmental Protection were to be laid off. What is needed now is Gov. Rendell's approval - something he has promised to deliver, albeit reluctantly. Along with environmental advocates and even lawmakers themselves, Rendell said yesterday he is disappointed that the Hazardous Sites Cleanup Fund (known as HSCA) remains without a dedicated funding source, despite bipartisan consensus that one is needed. "I will sign the bill, but it is a bad way of doing business," Rendell said after presiding at the lighting of the Capitol Christmas tree. "If we open the floodgates and allow people to spend money in the middle of the [fiscal] year without a revenue source, it would be a terrible precedent." Under the new funding plan, HSCA would receive $17.2 million from existing legislative accounts until June 30. From then until the end of June 2011, $40 million would be funneled into the program from a levy on businesses called the Capital Stock and Franchise Tax, which has been HSCA's funding source since its beginnings in 1988. However, the tax is scheduled to end as of Dec. 31, 2010, as the state tries to create a more welcoming business environment. Rendell noted yesterday that he has "vetoed a dozen bills or so" that require spending beyond the current budget year, with no reduction in other expenditures or increase in revenue. Nonetheless, he said he would make an exception for HSCA, in part because "we have so many hazardous-waste sites." At any given time, about 150 toxic-waste sites throughout the state are being cleaned up under HSCA. The program also supports state and local responses to chemical-spill emergencies, remediation of industrial sites known as brownfields, and investigations of illegal drug labs and hazardous-waste disposal. The House deliberated less than five minutes yesterday before approving the plan. Just like that, another down-to-the-wire showdown over HSCA evaporated. The House and Senate will not be in session next week, making it unlikely that any rescue plan could have been adopted before HSCA's Dec. 31 funding deadline. Wrangling over HSCA funding - particularly a proposal that would have diverted $40 million annually from the $86 million Keystone Recreation, Park and Conservation Fund - nearly derailed passage of the state budget last summer. A similar standoff seemed to be taking shape last week. On Dec. 4, the House Appropriations Committee unanimously passed a stopgap amendment to the Senate bill that would have ensured the survival of HSCA only through June. State Rep. Dwight Evans (D., Phila.), the chairman, and the other committee members had hoped to force the General Assembly to find another permanent funding source for HSCA during the budget-negotiation process next year. That idea was denounced by State Sen. Dominic Pileggi (R., Chester), who cowrote the bill adopted yesterday. "An issue as important as hazardous-sites cleanup should be . . . done in a deliberate, thoughtful fashion," he said, noting that his bill "allowed for time" to do that. He gets no argument from Jan Jarrett, vice president at Penn Future, a statewide environmental advocacy group. But she does worry that HSCA's new funding plan will expire about the same time as the state's $625 million Growing Greener II program is due to run out of funds - at the end of fiscal 2011. "So there's going to be an environmental-funding day of reckoning all coming at around the same time," Jarrett said. David Masur, director of the advocacy group Penn Environment, was worrying about a loss of momentum. "My guess would be [that] in 60 days, there will be no discussion by any legislator anywhere to tackle the issue of a dedicated funding source for HSCA," he said. Yesterday, Rep. Kate Harper (R., Montgomery) vowed to prove Masur wrong. She noted that proposed legislation to provide a long-term funding fix for HSCA already is pending, including bills involving bottle returns and refunds. Rendell's preference is to increase the trash-tipping fee, a dumping tax. "Everybody knows we have to provide [HSCA] with a stable funding source," she said. In the meantime, Harper said, the shorter-term solution will not come at the expense of other programs, since the state's "general revenues are up $80 million more than what we had projected." HSCA, she added, will not be punching "a hole in next year's budget." http://www.pennenvironment.org/in-the-news/environmental-health/healthy-communities/pa_-house-rescues-a-cleanup-program Mon, 17 Dec 2007 09:35:37 -0600 http://www.pennenvironment.org/in-the-news/environmental-health/healthy-communities/house-votes-on-cleanup-bill-today HARRISBURG — The state House of Representatives expects to vote today on a bill that could help clean up nine abandoned industrial sites in Bucks County and fund crews that mop up hazardous spills after train derailments and traffic crashes. House leaders announced late Tuesday that they agreed to squeeze $17 million from legislative accounts and money left over from the Capitol's centennial commission to fund the Hazardous Sites Cleanup program through July. A business tax known as the capital, stock and franchise tax will be tapped to provide about $40 million each year through July 2010. The program was set to run out of money on Dec. 31 and could have forced the state to lay off nearly 150 workers. Rep. Scott Petri, R-178, was one of the most vocal Republicans backing the cleanup plan conceived and passed by the state Senate last month. Some House Democrats wanted to revise the proposal and send it back to the Senate. But Petri and other Republicans said that was too risky because the Senate plans to start an extended Christmas break later today and might not have acted on the revised bill until next year. If the House passes the bill today, it goes to Gov. Ed Rendell's desk. He has signaled support for the plan. “What I think the Democrats intended to do is set up a crisis so we enact a new tax (to fund the program),” Petri said before the agreement was announced. “This bill gives you until 2011 (to find other funding). That's not a permanent solution. But up here (in Harrisburg) that's about as permanent as anything gets.” Bucks has nine sites that are either being cleaned up or monitored for groundwater or air pollution, according to Harrisburg-based environmental watchdog PennEnvironment. Those sites range from monitoring trichloroethylene — or TCE — in Morris Run to monitoring groundwater contamination near the Sellersville Landfill. Rep. Chris King, D-142, said members of his caucus realized that there was nothing drastically wrong with what Petri proposed. “It certainly seems to be a better alternative to laying people off a week before Christmas,” he said. Rep. Marguerite Quinn, a Bucks County Republican, said the threats of layoffs and programs shutting down reminded her of this summer's budget stalemate. She noted that an agreement on the hazardous sites funding couldn't be reached during the budget talks, but legislative leaders promised to take up the issue earlier this fall. But other issues, such as open records, pushed the issue into the shadows until this week. “Finally, at the midnight hour, we are going to get something that is not just a Band-Aid for the next six months,” Quinn said. House Majority Leader Bill DeWeese, a Greene County Democrat who represents part of Fayette, issued a prepared statement blaming Republicans for forcing the Democrats' hand by dragging out debate Monday on revising the state's open records bill. “Ideally we would have passed our House Democratic plan and worked to create a permanent funding solution for HSCA in the context of the 2008-2009 budget negotiations, but the stall tactics of the House Republicans last night (Monday night) took away the luxury of time,” DeWeese said. “We were forced to revert to the Senate's original proposal in order to get HSCA funding on the Governor's desk before the end of the year, so we reached across the aisle and took the bipartisan step of bringing the Senate's plan up on the floor.” Petri's district includes Northampton, Wrightstown and Ivyland and portions of Upper Makefield, Upper Southampton and Warwick. King represents Hulmeville, Langhorne, Langhorne Manor, Penndel, all but two precincts in Lower Southampton and part of Middletown. http://www.pennenvironment.org/in-the-news/environmental-health/healthy-communities/house-votes-on-cleanup-bill-today Mon, 17 Dec 2007 09:17:00 -0600 http://www.pennenvironment.org/in-the-news/environmental-health/healthy-communities/bill-critical-to-future-recycling By Rory Sweeney, The Times Leader, Wilkes-Barre, Pa. Jul. http://www.pennenvironment.org/in-the-news/environmental-health/healthy-communities/bill-critical-to-future-recycling Sun, 20 Jul 2008 15:57:49 -0500