Real Results For Pennsylvania's Environment
1. Cleaner Cars For Pennsylvania
In 2006, PennEnvironment played a critical role in helping pass the Pennsylvania Clean Vehicles program. This program will reduce tailpipe emissions of asthma-triggering smog by 10 percent, emissions of carcinogens by 15 percent and global warming pollution from cars and trucks by 25 percent by 2025.
2. Funding Open Space Protection
In 2005, PennEnvironment helped protect family farms and open spaces threatened by encroaching overdevelopment and restore polluted rivers and streams in Pennsylvania by securing $625 million in funding for the Growing Greener II program.
3. Reducing Mercury Pollution
PennEnvironment worked with environmental and public health groups to garner public support for an initiative to achieve a 90 percent reduction in dangerous mercury pollution from Pennsylvania’s coal-fired power plants by 2015.
4. Clean Water Enforcement
Our lawsuit against P.H. Glatfelter Co. forced the company to spend $30 million to clean up pollution from its paper mill near York, PA. The company paid a $2 million penalty, believed to be the largest settlement of its kind in state history.
5. Improving Recycling
In 2006, PennEnvironment lobbied to reauthorize the Pennsylvania Recycling Fund. This program is the cornerstone to the state’s recycling efforts, helping to fund recycling initiatives for towns, cities and counties across Pennsylvania.
6. Stopping Dangerous LNG Proposal
Our staff worked with local community and neighborhood leaders to halt a dangerous proposal to ship liquefied natural gas into the Port Richmond neighborhood of Philadelphia.
7. Smoke-Free Workplaces Legislation
PennEnvironment succeeded in passing smoke-free workplaces legislation in Philadelphia by joining public health organizations, after a national study confirmed that non-smokers increase their risk of developing heart disease by 25 to 30 percent and lung cancer by 20 to 30 percent when exposed to secondhand smoke.
8. Protection For 450,000 Acres
PennEnvironment fought heavy opposition from the energy industry and succeeded in protecting nearly 450,000 acres of state lands from new oil and gas drilling.
9. AK Steel Cleanup
AK Steel, located north of Pittsburgh, reduced its pollution into Connoquenessing Creek by 30 million pounds per year after a PennEnvironment report revealed that the facility had the nation’s highest levels of water pollution.
10. Rounding Up Illegal Polluters
PennEnvironment and Mid-Atlantic Environmental Law Center announced the settlement of a lawsuit against Tinicum Township, whose sewage treatment plant was illegally dumping into Darby Creek and the Heinz National Wildlife Refuge. The settlement will reduce pollution and fund a wetlands restoration project.
