November 20, 2015

Nov. 23 PA Environment Digest Now Available

The November 23 PA Environment Digest is now available.  Here are just a few of the headlines--

The Environmental Quality Board meeting to consider the final Chapter 78 (conventional) and 78A (Marcellus) drilling regulations will now be February 3 so it does not conflict with the Governor’s budget address on February 2.  The EQB will not have a January meeting.

DEP’s Pipeline Infrastructure Task Force met for 3 hours Wednesday to start its review of 184 recommendations in the draft Task Force report released by DEP on November 9.   One conclusion the members came to was they needed more time to discuss recommendations that were not agreed to by work group members.  DEP Secretary John Quigley agreed to look for a date in December for the Task Force to continue its review.

The Department of Environmental Protection is asking for stakeholders of the Growing Greener Program to complete a survey.  Data will be used in the possible development of a Growing Greener III Program.  The feedback you provide could help to secure future funding of existing Growing Greener-funded programs.  This is a great opportunity to highlight the success and needs of the Conservation District Watershed Specialists.

Restoration efforts by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation-PA to plant forested and streamside buffers in Pennsylvania have earned it accolades from two conservation groups.  CBF Pennsylvania’s Buffer Bonus Program was awarded the PA Resources Council’s “2015 Leadership in Conservation Award.”

Through a partnership initiated in 2011, Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful and the Washington County Court System Furlough Into Service Program celebrated their 100th illegal dump cleanup in Washington County this fall.

In a presentation to the Citizens Advisory Council Tuesday, DEP said the new 70 ppm federal ozone pollution standard will cause violations at 8 air monitors in 6 counties: Allegheny, Armstrong, Bucks, Lebanon, Montgomery and Philadelphia counties, based on 2015 monitoring data.

It began early this summer far to our north, in the sprawling forests of spruce, cedar and tamarack. For Pennsylvania-based firefighters it would be the first call of many in the hell that was the 2015 wildfire season.
Video of infernos devouring homes and racing across busy highways are locked in our mind's eye. For 206 men and women hailing from the Keystone State they were a way of life for two weeks after volunteering to answers the call—one that first came from Alaska.
By the close of the wildfire season, similar requests came from California, Montana, Idaho, Oregon and Washington.

The mini-documentaries of Ralph Abele, Mira Lloyd Dock and Gifford Pinchot by WITF-TV and the Pennsylvania Conservation Heritage Project are now available for viewing online.  Here are the links:

To read the Digest, visit: www.PaEnvironmentDigest.com.  Click Here to print the entire Digest.

PA Environment Digest is edited by David E. Hess, former Secretary Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, and is published as a service of Crisci Associates.


Additional Tools--
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Questions?: Send email to David Hess at: DHess@CrisciAssociates.com