Gov. Rendell this week appointed Gregory M. Phillips, District Manager/CEO of the Westmoreland County Conservation District, to serve as one of three commissioners representing Pennsylvania on the Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission.

ORSANCO works to control and abate pollution in the Ohio River Basin.

Phillips has been a champion for good water quality for nearly 25 years. Under his direction, the Westmoreland Conservation District has advanced a number of important initiatives to improve the health and safety of local streams, including: cleaning up the polluting drainage from abandoned coal mines, reducing the amount of stormwater runoff that goes into our streams and waterways, reducing erosion from farms and development sites, promoting good forest stewardship, encouraging water-quality education, and stabilizing dirt and gravel roads.

“I am looking forward to learning more about the issues facing this six-state compact and to the opportunity to add my experience with upper watershed work and non-point-source pollution control to the commission,” Phillips said.

Non-point-source pollution is the number one source of water pollution in Pennsylvania. It is called non-point-source because it doesn’t originate from a single, easy-to-see place, such as a pipe from a factory. It also can be many different kinds of water pollution.

For instance: it could be soil that washes off a long stretch of bare streambank, or motor oil and debris that is carried into a stream from a shopping center parking lot, or excess fertilizers and pesticides that migrate from lawns in a residential development into our waterways.

Phillips’ appointment to ORSANCO will run until September 2010.

His other community service includes serving as the treasurer of the Western Pennsylvania Coalition for Abandoned Mine Reclamation, a 23-county organization that works to restore streams and land damaged by past coal mining; and as a member of the Office of the Chair of the Smart Growth Partnership of Westmoreland County, a group that promotes sustainable land-use.

Over the years he has helped to found a number of important grassroots conservation organizations, including the Sewickley Creek Watershed Association, Penn’s Corner Conservancy Charitable Trust, Westmoreland Cleanways, and the Westmoreland Agricultural Land Preservation Program.

9/19/2008