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Growing Greener - Next Steps
To be competitive, aging towns and cities must overcome their less than positive post-industrial reputation. The recent Brookings Institute report shows in numbers what we all have known for a long time. As older communities decline, residents move out of town and into the countrysides where sprawl threatens wildlife and consumes farmlands and fragments forests. Our younger residents go one step further and leave the state for greener places. It is in our long-term best interest to renew older communities, to protect working landscapes of hardwood forests and farmlands and to restore clean water. We must not abandon historic towns and cities for green field developments. If we want Pennsylvania to be competitive in the years ahead, we must rid our landscape of such land and water scars. We simply will not attract or keep tomorrow's quality companies with yesterday's industrially stained landscapes, or with sprawling poorly planned housing and commercial developments. Many economically struggling communities must erase deterrents to attract new investments. We must address “quality of life” issues that haunt pollution-degraded watersheds and the towns and cities that inhabit their banks. Big-box stores at every major interchange, funded by tax dollars, fragmented landscapes and sediment-polluted waters must not define Pennsylvania's future-we can and must do better. Rather, let's define our future by the productivity and beauty of its rural working and natural landscapes, by well-maintained historic towns and cities and by the quality of abundant, clean waterways. In the knowledge-based economy of the 21st century, we must focus on restoration to enhance the quality of life in the region. Clean water and attractive landscapes encourage younger knowledge-based workers of the new economy to see Pennsylvania as a good place to work, play and live. Historically, many of our waterways were, and can once again be a focal point for viable communities. However, about one-third of the assessed streams in the state have poor water quality because of non-point pollution, such as urban and agricultural runoff, abandoned mine drainage and malfunctioning on-lot septic systems. Unreclaimed abandoned mines, for example, affecting about 250,000 acres in 43 of Pennsylvania's 67 counties, still pollute more than 2,100 miles of rivers and streams. With the passage of Operation Scarlift in 1968, Pennsylvania initiated the first serious effort to remediate past mine problems, and issued conservation bonds to raise $120 million specifically for the prevention and control of mine drainage and another 80 million to eliminate mine hazards. After Scarlift was finished, state funding for restoration had largely dried up until December 8, 1999, when the Pennsylvania Legislature, in partnership with Governor Ridge, passed the original “Growing Greener” bill creating the most comprehensive environmental restoration funding commitment since Operation Scarlift. Growing Greener breathed new life into the old struggle against mine drainage. Later, when Growing Greener was to be severely cut in hard financial times, a well-publicized effort lead to a $4 tipping fee increase that was enacted during the recent recession to rescue funding for Growing Greener. The bill, passed as a part of the 2002-2003 budget, called for an additional $4 disposal, or tipping fee, for each ton of solid waste disposed of in Pennsylvania, to replace general fund funding of Growing Greener.
Western Pennsylvania Conservancy ecologists have long observed that even if damaged, many of the qualities of streams and watersheds can be restored through careful stewardship. When WPC first launched the acquisition of Ohiopyle state Park in the fifties, the Youghiogheny River was polluted with mine drainage and had not seen fish in eight decades. When WPC proposed building Lake Arthur and establishing Moraine State Park, Muddy Creek had a pH of about 4.5 and the watershed was riddled with mines and had over 1,700 leaking oil wells. Conservation funding pays long-term dividends. Today, these parks enjoy millions of visitors and generate tremendous tourists dollars for the region. For example, Fayette County's number one revenue and jobs generator is tourism as a result of Project 70 and Project 500 investments in the sixties and seventies at Ohiopyle and at the nearby Shaw Mine Complex cleanup. Governor Randell's proposal for continuation of Growing Greener recognizes that watershed lands, too, need greater protection. Intact working and natural landscapes are an essential part of Pennsylvania - of our economic vitality, our quality of life and our unique culture and heritage. The natural abundance of the world's finest hardwood forests and some of the world's finest farmland has combined with a strong work ethic to produce much of our prosperity. While many of us may no longer live in rural settings, we relate to and recreate in nearby fields and forests, and they are important to our sense of place. Sprawl and parcelization of land has fragmented far too many of our remaining forest and agricultural lands, creating land-use conflicts, preventing sound forestry and diminishing the ecological and timber values of isolated woodlot remnants, and at the same time, decreasing the health of watersheds through increased non-point runoff. It is generally understood in a 21st-century, knowledge-based economy that clean water, community vibrancy and future economic growth go hand in hand. Stated simply, future jobs will flow toward vital, attractive communities that can attract and retain young knowledge workers by providing access to natural, recreational and cultural amenities that enhance the quality of life. In 1999, leaders of the major conservation groups, including the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy, lead a visioning process to shape what is now known as Growing Greener. The goal was to design a program that would expand state government funding to augment investments from private and Federal sources to match, and/or jump-start, priority conservation projects that had been languishing. With the commitment of thousands of volunteers across Pennsylvania, conservationists proposed a funding package known in 1999 as Heritage 21. The passage of Growing Greener was a compromise proposed by the Ridge administration to create the collaboration between the state government, the private sector and non-profit groups that was envisioned by Heritage 21. The recent proposal by Governor Rendell more fully reflects the original Heritage 21 priorities, and reflects the fuller scope of recommendations of Governor Ridge's 21st Century Commission report. Western Pennsylvania Conservancy urges your support for this important continuation of a great effort to restore the vitality of Pennsylvania. |
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We supported Governor Ridge's efforts to create Growing Greener, Governor Schweiker's tipping fees to sustain Growing Greener, and we now support Governor Rendell's proposal to address under-funded aspects of Growing Greener. It is a tribute to the bi-partisan cooperative spirit of Pennsylvania's governmental entities and its non-government organizations that we have worked side-by-side to find funding to improve the environment and to improve the long-term prospect of our economy. 
