The House Environmental Resources and Energy Committee is scheduled to hold an information meeting on June 12 on House Bill 707 (Zimmerman-R-Lancaster) that would exempt any facility owned by a church or an association of churches, including schools and camps, which rely on a privately-owned water well for their drinking water supplies from the need to meet Safe Drinking Water Act clean water standards.

Similar legislation was introduced last session as House Bill 776 and the session before that as House Bill 2249.

[Note: Presently facilities like this are regulated by DEP under the state Safe Drinking Water Act as non-community or transient water supplies in order to keep students, members and the public that use these facilities from being exposed to contaminated drinking water.

[Eliminating these facilities from the state program would also put Pennsylvania at risk of losing primacy for administering the federal Safe Drinking Water Act which requires the regulation of non-community and transient water supplies.

[If Pennsylvania loses primacy, the $100 million in federal funds the Commonwealth receives each year to fund drinking water system improvements and $5.5 million in support to pay for inspectors and permit reviewers for the program would be lost.

[Over 30 years of research by Penn State Extension demonstrates 40 percent or more of the private water wells in Pennsylvania do not meet one or more drinking water standards.  That’s particularly true in agricultural areas like Lancaster County where older, improperly constructed wells allow surface water from farm runoff to contaminate well water supplies.]

The meeting will be held in Room 205 of the Ryan Office Building starting at 9:00 a.m.  Click Here to watch the meeting online.

Rep. Daryl Metcalfe (R-Butler) serves as Majority Chair of the House Environmental Committee and can be contacted by calling 717-783-1707 or sending email to: dmetcalf@pahousegop.com. Rep. Greg Vitali (D-Delaware) serves as Minority Chair and can be contacted by calling 717-787-7647 or sending email to: gvitali@pahouse.net.

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[Posted: June 5, 2019]

6/10/2019