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Op-Ed: From Rooftops To Rivers, Solving The Big Problem Of Stormwater With Local Solutions

By Harry Campbell, Chesapeake Bay Foundation-PA

You may not realize it but the water we drink, shower and bathe with, and recreate in was once stormwater.

When it rains, water runoff off hard surfaces like rooftops, parking lots, roads, and even lawns is often shuttled to the nearest river or stream by underground pipes and open swales. Along the way, things like motor oil, pet waste, lawn chemicals and fertilizers, cigarette butts and garbage hitch a ride.

Too much stormwater can overwhelm Pennsylvania’s undersized and undermaintained infrastructure. In many areas this is often combined with human waste and can cause raw sewage overflows into streams and streets. It is flooding that plagues most of our older towns and boroughs, and floodwater is sometimes unsafe for human contact. Pennsylvania has more of these “combined sewer overflows” than another other state.

About 5,200 miles of our streams are classified as impaired by polluted stormwater runoff.

While we all want less of the dirty stuff flooding and polluting the water we rely upon, agreement on how to reduce, clean, and manage polluted runoff isn’t as easy to come by.

Over 1,700 governments nationwide, including more than two dozen in Pennsylvania, have chosen to establish local stormwater fees. One common feature of all these is that they’re based on local solutions to a big problem.

As the flood of reporting about stormwater fees continues, several points made recently deserve to be clarified.

Back in 1987, Congress recognized that stormwater was a big and growing problem in the nation. Starting in 1990, as part of the federal Clean Water Act, certain sized municipalities were required to start reducing stormwater runoff. Today, there are over 1,000 such municipalities in Pennsylvania.

The concept of Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDL) have been in the Clean Water Act since being signed into law in 1972 and followed case-law in the 1990’s. The TMDL for the Chesapeake Bay was created in 2010 after decades of promises made to reduce pollution were not kept.

Municipalities are not mandated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) or state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to have stormwater fees. Instead, municipalities choose how to pay for stormwater projects.

The stormwater fee is not a tax on the amount of rain that falls from the sky and onto the land. Because it is not a tax, the fee often provides that tax-exempt properties pay their fair share. Some municipalities apply calculated stormwater fees to agriculture, churches, schools, and government properties. Others ask for a flat fee.

For other landowners, such as businesses, the fee is based on the property’s amount of hard surface and how much polluted runoff the property sends into the stormwater system. It’s an impact fee.

Most programs offer credits or discounts for property owners who add trees, rain gardens, and other practices that reduce stormwater pollution.

Fees can vary. For example, households in the city of Lancaster pay about $0.10 a day. Derry Township in Dauphin County has a fee of $0.21 a day. The Wyoming Valley Sanitary Authority fee is around $0.16 a day. Folks who buy fast-food coffee three times a week would pay more each month.

The revenues from fees are usually dedicated to the local stormwater authority, to be used only for reducing amount polluted runoff and its impacts.

One inch of rain on just one acre of hardened surface produces about 27,000 gallons of polluted runoff. That’s almost enough to fill a large, in-ground swimming pool.

For most local systems—some of which haven’t been maintained or updated for 25, 50, even 100 years—the water hits our streams hard and fast. It blows them out of their banks causing flooding to roads, downtowns, backyards and basements.

A recent opinion piece called for the state DEP to provide “substantiated, comprehensive data” of local water quality and plans for monitoring improvements.

There’s a surprisingly large amount of stream water quality monitoring data in Pennsylvania already. It’s been collected by federal and state agencies, academic institutions, and even local watershed groups sometimes for decades. Much of it, after review for accuracy, is used to help scientists understand what’s going on in our streams and why.

Models, however, do something monitoring simply can’t. They’re used to predict the outcomes of different scenarios, sometimes including cost estimates that can ultimately save citizens money.

More monitoring can be helpful. But without increased investments in the programs and people to make it happen, the question becomes how will the monitoring be done and by whom?

DEP staffing is now only at levels it was in the mid-90s, and the water programs have been chronically underfunded for over a decade. The Governor’s 2020-21 budget proposed that DEP funding rise above 1994-95 levels for the first time in a decade.

Another point worth clarifying. CBF has not said it will sue Pennsylvania for being significantly behind in meeting its clean water commitments. The state of Maryland has said that. However, both Maryland and CBF have said that EPA is subject to suit for not holding the Commonwealth accountable for repeatedly missing its targets.

Locally created and controlled stormwater programs are a critical part of ensuring that we have clean and abundant water.

Our health, wellbeing, and quality of life depend on it.

For more on Chesapeake Bay-related issues in Pennsylvania, visit the Chesapeake Bay Foundation-PA webpage. Click Here to sign up for Pennsylvania updates (bottom of left column). Click Here to support their work.

Also visit the Keystone 10 Million Trees Partnership to learn how you can help clean water grow on trees.

For more information on how Pennsylvania plans to meet its Chesapeake Bay cleanup obligations, visit DEP’s PA’s Phase 3 Watershed Implementation Plan webpage.

Click Here for a summary of the steps the Plan recommends.

(Photo: Landstudies Butterfly Acres Restoration, Lancaster County.)

Harry Campbell is the PA Executive Director and Science Policy and Advocacy Director, Chesapeake Bay Foundation

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