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PA CleanWays, Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful Release Illegal Dump Surveys For 12 Counties
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PA CleanWays - Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful this week released reports for 12 counties from their Illegal Dumpsite Survey Program-- Beaver, Blair, Cambria, Cameron, Clearfield, Clinton, Huntingdon, Juniata, Lebanon, Mifflin, Union, and York.
Here are the number of dumpsites and tons of waste found in these new surveys--
PA CleanWays - Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful has surveyed 49 counties, locating 5,098 dumpsites with a total estimated tonnage of 15,805.32 tons.
In order to develop a comprehensive strategic plan to address illegal dumping including public policy, proper resource allocation, community education, and cleanup and abatement efforts, PA CleanWays - Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful embarked on a statewide illegal dump survey program in 2005.
PA CleanWays - Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful believes that in order to truly address the root causes associated with illegal dumping, the problem needed to be better defined.
While illegal dumping is thought to be mostly a rural problem that occurs in remote and secluded places where few persons live and the roads are less traveled, PA CleanWays has found that it is a problem in urban and suburban areas as well. In fact, for residents of an urban area, an illegal dump is often within a one mile radius of their home.
Overall, very few people are aware of the widespread problem of illegal dumping in Pennsylvania. PA CleanWays - Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful illegal dump surveys educate state, county, and local officials, as well as citizens, about the problem of illegal dumping and provide valuable data about the dumpsites and the community in which they reside.
“The purpose of an illegal dump survey is to assess and document as many illegal dumpsites as possible within a county,” says Shannon Reiter, President of PA CleanWays - Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful. “The survey is a tool that can be used for planning purposes within a community, provide valuable insight into development of solid waste and recycling programs, and be used to gain support for funding for public awareness programs and education, as well as generate funds to clean the existing dumpsites.”
The survey process typically takes a year to complete. Municipalities, state agencies, environmental groups, and other key stakeholders are contacted and information regarding known dumpsites is gathered. Surveyors then document known and unknown sites driving public roadways.
Standardized assessment forms are used to collect data, pictures are taken for documentation, as well as GPS coordinates for mapping purposes. PA CleanWays - Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful surveys do not include private dumps or farm dumps.
Funding for this latest round of surveys was provided through grants from the Department of Environmental Protection, the Community Foundation for the Alleghenies, the Robert A. Anderson Family Fund and the Codorus Watershed Endowment of the York County Community Foundation, as well as a contribution from the Watershed Alliance of York.
Copies of the surveys are available online.
Since 1990, PA CleanWays - Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful has been dedicated to empowering people to resolve and prevent these destructive problems by properly disposing over 11,900 tons of trash from Pennsylvania’s landscape as well as recycling over 2,200 tons of scrap metal and over 410,000 tires through cleanups and special collections.
For more information, visit the PA CleanWays - Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful website.
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7/12/2010 |
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