By Harry Campbell, PA Office Director Chesapeake Bay Foundation
The following op-ed appeared October 13 on PennLive.com, a publication of the Patriot-News.
We all count on clean water . . . But, with roughly 19,000 miles of polluted streams and rivers in our Commonwealth, too many of our waters are considered polluted. We all pay the price — lost jobs, human health risks, taxes and fees to purify drinking water.
And right now the Pennsylvania General Assembly and Gov. Corbett have a choice about protecting Pennsylvania's rivers and streams.
One of the most cost-efficient and well-established practices to clean up waterways and to keep them clean is to plant trees along stream banks — what some call forested buffers.
These buffers soak up water, reducing runoff and keeping any pollutants it carries from draining into streams. Their roots hold onto soil, keeping it from washing into and clouding the water. Their canopies lower water temperatures, improving wildlife habitat for fish like the brook trout, which is crucial in many local economies. And their green leaves convert carbon dioxide to oxygen, improving air quality and lowering our health risks from, for example, asthma. Trees are one of nature's best methods to stop pollution and maintain clean rivers and streams.
Pennsylvania has a blueprint for clean water and as part of that blueprint set a goal of planting 74,000 acres of forested buffers by 2013. Recently, our state reported that we have achieved only 17 percent of that goal. That leaves us a very long way to go before we realize the benefits of forested stream banks to our rivers and streams.
Why, then, would our elected officials even consider approving a bill [House Bill 1565 (Hahn-R-Northampton)] that allows land developers to cut down existing streamside buffers along our last remaining pristine streams? It makes no sense at all and should not be done.
This week, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation released a peer-reviewed report detailing the economic benefits of cleaning up local rivers and streams and the Chesapeake Bay watershed. Public News Service featured that report: Putting a Price Tag on the Value of Clean Water to Pennsylvania (October 7, 2014). They said, "A new analysis of the potential financial benefits of the Chesapeake Clean Water Blueprint finds a measurable return, with cleaner water adding about $6 billion a year in value to Pennsylvania's economy."
Pennsylvanian's own Thomas Hylton, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of the book "Save Our Land, Save Our Towns," was quoted in that article saying, "How much is something costing you, and how much benefit are you getting back? The [CBF's] analysis indicates its way less expensive to pay attention to Mother Nature and protect the environment, economically, than it is to let it go."
We need to protect our clean streams, as well as restore our polluted ones. It makes sense environmentally as well as, economically.
We call on the General Assembly and Gov. Corbett to prevent this bad bill for Pennsylvanians from becoming law. Our waters will be cleaner and our legacy brighter if they do.
NewsClip: Op-Ed: Legislature Shouldn’t Gut State’s Streamside Protections