Susquehanna River Basin Commission Acts To Strengthen Its Open Records Policy

The Susquehanna River Basin Commission approved a new proposed rulemaking at its September 7 meeting to codify and strengthen its Access to Records (open records) Policy .

The proposed rule is designed to enhance the Commission’s commitment to open and transparent operations and accessibility of records to the public.

The Commission has a longstanding practice of providing information to the public in much the same manner as its member states.

The Commission first promulgated its Freedom of Information Policy on January 11, 1979, and then updated its open records policy by adopting its Access to Records Policy on September 10, 2009.

“We believe our policy has been successful in satisfying records requests. Over the past several years, the Commission provided records to more than 100 formal records requests and more than 50 distinct requests for data or information, as well as innumerable informal information requests,” said Andrew Dehoff, Commission executive director. “Over the years, the Commission has also implemented significant improvements to the data and information available on its website.”

The Commission will continue this long tradition of transparency by further formalizing the key elements of its Access to Records Policy in duly promulgated regulations.

Through this action, the Commission will be codifying its commitment to public access to records in a way that instills these new regulations with the status of law that can be enforceable against the Commission.

The action on the proposed rulemaking were among several others taken at the Commission’s quarterly business meeting. In other business, the Commission:

-- Adopted guidelines for preparing an alternatives analysis to provide clarity to project sponsors regarding a formal evaluation of alternate options for a proposed water source, use or diversion.

-- Granted the waiver requests of Carrolltown Borough Municipal Authority and the Village of Hamilton to extend the expiration dates of their groundwater withdrawal approvals.

-- Granted Middletown Borough’s request for waiver, modifying the requirements of the regulation appropriate to Middletown’s request and directed staff to apply this modification to similar situations while a rulemaking is developed.

-- Denied a request by Peak Resorts, Inc./Greek Peak Mountain Resort, to waive rules that result in forfeiture of the mitigation exemption for a portion of its consumptive use of the project that it had purchased.

-- Extended emergency certificates for Sunset Golf Course, Sunoco Pipeline L.P., and Furman Foods, Inc.

The Commission also approved 17 applications and tabled four others (see lists online).

The voting Commissioners and alternates were: Col. Ed Chamberlayne, Chair, Commander and District Engineer, Baltimore District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; Paul D’Amato, Director, Region 8, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation; Jennifer Orr, Director, Compact and Commissions Office, Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection; and Virginia Kearney, Deputy Director, Water Management Administration, Maryland Department of the Environment.

Commission staff also reported on delegated settlements with the following project sponsors, pursuant to Resolution No. 2014-15:

-- Labrador Mountain, in the amount of $2,000;

-- Standing Stone Golf Club, Inc., in the amount of $2,000; and

-- Suez Water Owego-Nichols, Inc., in the amount of $7,500.

Click Here for a more complete summary of the meeting.

For more information, visit SRBC’s Public Participation Center webpage.