W-B attorney named to pipelines task force

Mike Helbing, a PennFuture staff attorney since June 2013, was recently appointed to the new Pennsylvania Pipeline Infrastructure Taskforce. The task force was established by Gov. Tom Wolf and is comprised of 48 members who will develop recommendations on natural gas pipeline infrastructure to be submitted to the governor by February 2016. Task force meetings beginning later this July will be open to the public and streamed live, according to the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). Mike will serve on the Environmental Protection workgroup, which is one of twelve covering specific areas. The task force is expected to address a range of issues and develop best practices and strong policies for the significant number of planned gas pipeline projects across Pennsylvania.

Mike transferred in July from our Philadelphia office to our Wilkes-Barre office, just one county over from his native Lackawanna County. Prior to coming to PennFuture, he was an associate chief counsel for litigation at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and is an alumnus of Penn State University and Yale Law School.

Mike's work covers water quality, stormwater, and gas drilling issues focusing on the Delaware and Susquehanna River watersheds, and includes reviewing and filing comments on pipeline and transmission line permit applications and on revisions to DEP’s oil and gas regulations. In a win for citizen participation and water quality, he was a lead negotiator on a November 2014 settlement with DEP to improve Pennsylvania's municipal stormwater permitting process.

Kate Gibbons is northeastern Pennsylvania outreach coordinator for PennFuture and is based in Wilkes-Barre.

Make your voice heard on environmental issues

On March 18, Philadelphia City Councilmember Blondell Reynolds Brown invited citizens and activists to participate in the “State of the Environment” hearing before Philadelphia City Council’s Committee on the Environment. Speakers participated on a series of four panels – oil train safety, water, air, and litter and trash.

The goal of the hearings was to bring forth solutions to address environmental issues in the City of Philadelphia, particularly solutions that can be initiated by City Council.
In representing PennFuture, I had the pleasure of testifying on the water panel alongside Clean Water Action and the Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia. As a group, we tackled water quality as it relates to stormwater management, litter and trash issues, climate change adaptation, and oil train traffic. The full text of PennFuture’s testimony can be found here.

Opportunities like this serve as a reminder of the critical importance of publicly supporting issues of concern in our region. Elected officials need to hear from organizations, but they particularly need to hear from individuals on issues affecting our communities. You need not be an expert to have your voice heard.

So what environmental issues do you think are important to address?

• Improving the health of our waterways?

• Ensuring that every community in the city has access to green space?

• Monitoring trains carrying crude oil through our neighborhoods?

• Getting litter out of our streets and waterways?

• Protecting vulnerable people and places from the effects of climate change?

Let us know! PennFuture supporters are active citizens -- whether it’s by sending online action alerts, attending public events, or testifying before elected bodies. To get involved, sign up to volunteer or become a member today.

Katie Bartolotta is southeastern Pennsylvania outreach coordinator for PennFuture and is based in Philadelphia. She tweets @KatieBartolotta.

ALCOSAN’s Wet Weather Plan is looking gray; does that leave room for green?

In 2012, PennFuture submitted comments encouraging the Allegheny County Sanitary Authority (ALCOSAN) to look for ways to green their Wet Weather Plan. The Plan is required by law, to outline a strategy to keep raw sewage out of our waterways.* The end goal is important. Our rivers provide our drinking water as well as places to fish, swim, boat and unwind. If our rivers aren't clean and healthy, we in Allegheny County lose out.

Stormwater Bumpout
Image credit:
Philadelphia Water Department

Reaching the Goal 
How we reach the end goal has been the subject of a very public conversation over the past year. While ALCOSAN proposed gray infrastructure (pipes and tanks) to store more water, many groups, including PennFuture, are asking for green. Green infrastructure means capturing rain where it lands, before it enters the pipe system and, ideally, allowing it to soak into the ground or be taken up by plant roots. Unlike gray infrastructure, green doesn't just manage stormwater. Green infrastructure provides secondary benefits including limiting surface water erosion; creating habitat and passive recreational areas; shading urban spaces and reducing cooling costs (hard to appreciate in February but important nonetheless); offsetting climate change; cleaning our polluted air; and increasing property values.

If green is so great, why isn't it in the Wet Weather Plan?  
Good question. The features that make green infrastructure great, including that it is on the surface, beautifying our neighborhoods while cleaning our water, are also what make it challenging to plan for. Green infrastructure must be integrated into 83 municipalities. Over the past year, understanding of the value of green infrastructure has increased dramatically throughout the county and the demand is now loud and clear, with leaders including Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto and Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald leading the way.

Let’s go green now
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently told ALCOSAN that the Wet Weather Plan won’t meet required water quality standards. With a new administration in Pittsburgh, the news may be a step forward rather than a setback. By asking ALCOSAN to revisit the plan, the EPA has left the door open for green infrastructure. Let’s take this opportunity to invest in clean water AND thriving communities by incorporating green infrastructure along with the gray.

*How does raw sewage wind up in the water, you ask? 
As we build our homes, schools, offices roads and parking lots, we cover up soil and replace it with hard, impermeable surfaces. When it rains (or snows) all the water that hits those hard surfaces is sent straight into pipes instead of soaking into the ground. Once the pipes fill up, they are designed to overflow (so they don’t back up into your basement), and overflows dump not only rain and snow melt into our rivers but the sewage that flows in there, too. Gross, I know!

Valessa Souter-Kline is PennFuture's Western Pennsylvania Outreach Coordinator and is based in our Pittsburgh office. 

Last minute City Council amendments could prevent PWD from making critical investments

"If you let politicians set water rates, we'll all be drinking mud."

Those words were uttered by someone who knows a thing or two about Philly politicians, former Mayor and Council President John Street. 

On Thursday, City Council is set to vote on a bill that will allow a board of political appointees to set water rates. 

Currently, water rates are set through a public hearing process in which the Mayor and City Council select a hearing officer and a public advocate, with the final decision to approve rates made by the Water Commissioner. 

While not perfect (or completely devoid of politics), the process has allowed the Philadelphia Water Department (PWD) to maintain water infrastructure and set rates that ensure we have clean drinking water. [PennFuture intervened in both the 2009 and 2012 rate proceedings.]

The current rate process has afforded the City the ability to make badly needed investments in stormwater infrastructure through its Green City Clean Waters initiative, the City's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)-mandated plan to protect and enhance our water supply by managing stormwater. 

But thanks to a ballot question last November -- and last-minute amendments in City Council last week -- things could change, and soon. And not in a good way. 

Let's back up: Last November, voters approved a ballot question to create an "independent" rate-making board. (Not surprising given that Philly tends to approve the cleverly-crafted ballot questions). PennFuture opposed the ballot question at the time, as it will instantly burden the process with more political actors who may not understand the need to balance low rates with the need to create a good water system.

On Thursday, City Council will vote on a bill that will officially create this rate-making board and regulate how the rates are imposed. 

But missing from that bill are key provisions that would provide the water department basic fiscal certainty -- fiscal certainty that is needed to protect our water supply, maintain aging infrastructure, and adapt to unforeseen economic circumstances. 

Amendments introduced last Thursday removed essential minimum financial standards that had been negotiated with the Water Department, City Council, and stakeholder groups -- standards that  would help guarantee that the department has rates set high enough to cover operating expenses and debt service. 

In June, a bill passed out of committee that did just that. We testified in support of the original unamended bill at the committee hearing because it gave the department the best chance to continue its crucial stormwater work and adequately invest in key infrastructure projects. 

In addition to harming the Water Department's ability to carry out its mission, the lack of basic financial standards could damage the department's credit rating and cause concern among bond holders -- ultimately leading to higher rates for all ratepayers. 

We urge you to contact your Councilmember and tell them that the Water Department needs basic financial certainty to do its job and provide clean, safe drinking water. 


Andrew Sharp is PennFuture's Director of Outreach and works out of our Philadelphia office.