Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
agencies and departments that are critical to the independent municipalities, who
rely for such services as public health, social services, institutions, and some
infrastructure facilities (bridges, etc.). The decisions concerning the use of land
in each of the 2560 municipalities is made by a small group of elected officials,
supported by a cadre of professional lawyers, engineers, and planners, who pro-
vide the professional guidance to assure compliance with all regulatory criteria.
From a constitutional perspective, local government has only those powers that
the state has delegated, but it is unlikely that any future state government will
have the political will to make land use decisions, with the exception of the
highway department with respect to rights-of-way. This difficult and somewhat
feudal system of land use management will continue into the foreseeable future.
Pennsylvania Water Law
Water Quality
The commonwealth of Pennsylvania has a relatively long his-
tory with respect to protecting water quality in surface waters, driven by an
equally long degradation of streams, primarily as a result of mining, both deep
and surface, which has polluted some 10,000 miles of stream with acid waste.
The mining of coal was long considered the economic backbone of this state,
and during the early part of the twentieth century it could be said accurately that
“Coal was King,” and little was done to prevent the impact of residual coal seam
material, rich in sulfates that oxidized to become sulfuric acid, on the regional
surface waters. Finally, in 1937, the state enacted the Clean Streams Law specif-
ically to address this issue, but also to prod municipalities into the building of
wastewater treatment facilities. Over time and with strong federal support after
1972, the state has evolved a fairly good set of water quality regulations intended
to protect the abundant water resources with which it is blessed. However, it has
not restored the original quality to thousands of miles of streams.
Stormwater
In contrast to some other states, Pennsylvania does not have laws
and associated regulations that manage stormwater on a state level. Stormwater
management in Pennsylvania is largely a “bottom-up” system where municipal-
ities shoulder the brunt of the management as well as the regulation. Where
municipalities lack zoning ordinances as well as subdivision and land devel-
opment regulations, there may be little or no formal stormwater regulation on
the municipal level. With expanding programs, such as NPDES Phase II and
PADEP's Post Construction Management Permits/Plans for sites disturbing more
than 1 acre, as well as Act 167 Stormwater Management Plans for designated
watersheds, some upper-level management intervention by county conservation
districts and PADEP itself is occurring, regardless of the municipal stormwater
management program.
Although these new and expanding NPDES Phase II and Act 167 programs
provide some level of consistency and uniformity for stormwater management
in Pennsylvania, there nevertheless remains a basic lack of guidance around
which the municipalities in the state can structure their respective stormwater
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