On April 9 a unique group of organizations came together to propose the PA Fair Share for Clean Water Funding Plan to help wastewater plant ratepayers and farmers with the cost of meeting Chesapeake Bay Watershed and statewide water quality improvement mandates.

The coalition includes the Pennsylvania Municipal Authorities Association, Pennsylvania Farm Bureau, Pennsylvania Builders Association, Pennsylvania Association of Conservation Districts, and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, the Federation of Sportsmen’s Clubs and the Pennsylvania Realtors Association.

These groups all strongly support cleaning up Pennsylvania’s rivers and streams, but want state government to be a partner in that effort.

Here are the comments presented by Robert J. Fisher on behalf of the Pennsylvania Builders Association supporting the Fair Share Plan--

Good morning. My name is Robert J. Fisher, and I am president of R. J. Fisher & Associates, a New Cumberland-based planning, surveying and engineering firm. I serve as chairman of the Pennsylvania Builders Association’s Chesapeake Bay Tributary Strategy Task Force, and I am also a member of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection’s Chesapeake Bay Tributary Strategy Act 537 Plan Committee.

For more than two years, Pennsylvania’s housing industry has been actively involved in efforts to help the state Department of Environmental Protection develop a Chesapeake Bay compliance plan that can achieve two important goals: improving the water quality of the Chesapeake Bay and its watershed and ensuring that economic growth and development can continue to take place in the affected portion of Pennsylvania.

Nevertheless, despite the good-faith efforts of numerous organizations, including those represented here today, needed changes have not been implemented to the Department’s strategy. Pennsylvania now faces a situation under which sewage ratepayers may be forced to spend $1 billion on capital upgrades that will reduce only a small fraction of the pollution that the state sends to the Bay.

At the same time, due to the fact that the Department’s plan makes no allowance for new nutrient discharges, economic development in large portions of Pennsylvania will be choked off for a lack of future sewage capacity for new growth.

To avert these environmental and economic calamities, a new approach is needed—and that is why we have joined today with other organizations that also recognize the need for policy changes that target funding resources to the areas of greatest environmental benefit to the Bay and provide a mechanism that accommodates future economic development.

The Department’s strategy provides for such a mechanism in the form of a nutrient credit trading program, under which credits would be generated, primarily through the installation of agricultural best management practices (BMPs), to offset nutrient discharges that exceed mandated limits.

However, due to a number of flaws with the current structure and implementation of the trading program, it has not been viewed as a viable option either by potential credit users or generators.

A concept that would help to improve the workability of the trading program would be to create a nutrient credit trading bank that would guarantee the availability of credits over a 20 or 30-year time period at a fixed cost.

At the same time, a much better nutrient reduction strategy would be to concentrate funding efforts to install BMPs to clean up the primary sources of nutrient pollution, mainly farmlands in south-central Pennsylvania. The credits generated by these farms could be subsidized and used to meet the needs of treatment plants and builders throughout the bay drainage area at a cost potentially lower than that needed for capital upgrades.

In closing, I would like to acknowledge and express PBA’s gratitude for the efforts of Rep. Scott Perry, who has provided outstanding leadership on this issue and worked with many of the organizations represented here today, along with legislative staff, to craft a bill that incorporates many of the concepts we have spoken of this morning.

We look forward to supporting his bill upon its introduction and urge our coalition partners to do the same. We also appreciate the work of Sen. Patricia Vance, Rep. Jerry Nailor, and other state legislators who understand the implications of this issue for Pennsylvania and have worked diligently to address the problems with the Chesapeake Bay and its cleanup. Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak today.

Fair Share Plan: The first year of the Plan proposes the allocation of $100 million to help wastewater plants finance required improvements; $50 million to direct cost-share aid to farmers to install conservation practices (including $35 million for REAP farm conservation tax credits and $15 million in cost-share funding); $10 million to county conservation districts to expand technical assistance to farmers; and $10 million to restore cuts to the Department of Agriculture farm programs. The proposal would also reform the state’s nutrient credit trading program to help allow for future economic development.

For more information on the Pennsylvania Fair Share Plan for Clean Water, visit the Fair Share for Clean Water webpage.

NewsClips: Editorial: Key Groups in Sewage Dispute Make Progress Over Funding

Official Says Bay Cleanup Has A Long Way to Go

Valley Sewer Authority: Contact State Officials About Sewer Funding

Video Blog: Remarks By Coalition Partners on the Fair Share Clean Water Plan

Links: Coalition Proposes Fair Share Clean Water Funding Plan

16,000 Miles of Polluted Streams Add Urgency to Call for Clean Water Funding

4/25/2008