A new online tool for screening the impact a proposed project will have on threatened and endangered species in Pennsylvania is now available on-line.

The Pennsylvania Natural Diversity Inventory database will help consultants and developers save time and money and alert environmentalists to potential threats to certain animals and plants. Professionals using the site must register and acquire a user name and password.

Applicants are required to coordinate with state and federal agencies about potential impacts to threatened and endangered species when they apply for an environmental permit in Pennsylvania.

Before the new system, a search of the database was completed by a government agency. A permit applicant or the general public can use the new PNDI Environmental Review Tool for a proposed project.

Project searches on the database that return no potential impacts can be expedited. Projects with potential impacts will require further coordination with the appropriate federal or state agency listed on the results of the review.

Anyone logging on to the Pennsylvania Natural Heritage Program website will receive information helping them access the new search forms, and read and interpret their results.

The heritage program, a partnership between the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy and The Nature Conservancy, collects and inventories data on Pennsylvania’s native biological diversity.

The heritage program is a part of NatureServe, an international network of heritage programs.

Species tracked within the system are sorted by county and watershed and updated monthly. They include those listed as endangered, threatened or rare by DCNR, the Game Commission, Fish and Boat Commission and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Also found are species recommended for such listing by the Pennsylvania Biological Survey, as well as natural community types and geologic features recommended by program ecologists and DCNR's Bureau of Topographic and Geologic Survey.

For more information, visit the Pennsylvania Natural Heritage Program website.

12/9/2005