04/15/24 - 66 New Stories - REAL Environmental & Conservation Leadership In PA: http://tinyurl.com/msuwtctm
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Opinion - Pennsylvania Can’t Afford To Stop Growing Greener
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Since 1999, the Growing Greener Program has improved more miles of streams, preserved more farmland and allowed for more job growth than any other environmental program of its kind. It has proven, without a doubt, that you can protect and repair our environment without preventing economic growth. Growing Greener has become the barometer of the health of Pennsylvania’s environmental quality.
In the last four years alone, Growing Greener has reduced flooding and pollution of our water through 400 watershed protection projects and more than 100 drinking and waste water improvements; restored more than 1,600 acres of abandoned mine lands; and provided more than $66 million to help counties address their local environmental priorities.
In 2002, a dedicated source of revenue for the Environmental Stewardship Fund that supports Growing Greener was identified through increased in the tipping fee charged at landfills. A $625 million bond approved by the voters in 2005 called Growing Greener II then supplemented the tipping fees. However, the debt service on the Growing Greener bonds comes out of the Environmental Stewardship Fund.
This fiscal practice of robbing Peter to pay Paul to pay for the debt on the Growing Greener II bonds will leave the Environmental Stewardship Fund essential empty and the future of the program in jeopardy. The environmental and fiscal consequences of letting Growing Greener lapse increase exponentially as Pennsylvania enters the natural gas drilling boom.
There is a solution.
Pennsylvanians have been saying for months they want a fee for natural gas drilling to protect communities from the environmental consequences associated with the industry.
In fact, a poll in March by Susquehanna Polling and research showed 70 percent of Pennsylvanians support the idea.
We have the mechanism through Growing Greener to continue to repair, protect and monitor our environmental quality at the local level. Using funds from an impact fee, severance tax, future leases or even royalties to fund the Environmental Stewardship fund ensures that Growing Greener will continue to maintain the environmental health of our communities.
The work of Growing Greener is far from finished. The Commonwealth currently has 16,000 miles of streams that are unfit for swimming or fishing. Abandoned mines scar 189,000 acres in 44 counties and are the cause of 5,300 miles of dead streams.
And while we have made good progress on preserving farmland to safeguard our food supply, more than 2,000 families remain on a waiting list to protect their farms.
Natural gas drilling presents untold economic opportunities for Pennsylvania, similar to the untold economic opportunities the coal and steel industries presented for our grandparents. But generations later, we are still working to repair the scars of acid mine drainage.
If we have learned any lessons from our great past, it is that we need to be environmental stewards of our future. By sustaining Growing Greener, we will not leave the same environmental legacy for our grandchildren that our grandparents left for us.
For more information, visit the Renew Growing Greener Coalition website.
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4/18/2011 |
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