tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-39040683588412243702024-03-05T05:41:11.801-05:00Stream HuggerThe Political Economy of Conservation. Observations about grassroots conservation efforts. Scott Alderferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17545537207383745803noreply@blogger.comBlogger56125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3904068358841224370.post-62037328515470717692016-03-05T21:49:00.002-05:002016-03-05T22:10:03.585-05:00Public Space: How Much Are You Willing to Pay to Mow a Lawn Nobody Uses?<span style="color: #1f2326; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I’ve written in the past about my volunteer work on my township’s Environmental Advisory Council (EAC) advising the township commissioners and staff on environmental matters facing the township. Historically, they have brushed off our advice. In the last year or two, however, as some rather self-serving commissioners have cycled off of the board, the board has begun to become more open to the EAC’s suggestions. But there is still some progress to be made.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This is township-owned land that is regularly mowed but is almost never</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">used by neighbors </span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">for any recreational activities. </span><span style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: justify;">(photo:Google Maps)</span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1f2326; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">One of the issues that I have been trying to get some action on over the past couple of years has been mowing of township open space properties. I’m not talking about active-use parks and sports fields, which are rightfully very well maintained. I’m talking about areas that the pubic does not actively use. The areas that would be best left as natural open spaces. For no other reason than, “That’s how we’ve always done it,” the township regularly mows township-owned fields throughout our 22-square mile municipality on a regular basis. Some areas are mowed on a weekly basis and others a few times a season. The current Public Works regime insists on mowing so much land that the township parks crew is unable to do it all, so a mowing contractor is hired. The mowing contract has been a multi-year affair, to the tune of about $90,000 per year. One of the most wasteful aspects about the mowing contract is that it requires mowing the designated areas on a weekly basis, regardless of whether they need it. So if an area is waterlogged from a week that saw 10 inches of rain, they mow grass that has standing water, often leaving ruts in the grass. Or if we are sweltering in early August without having seen more than half an inch of rain in the past 3 weeks, they mow the brown, crispy grass, leaving a cloud of dust in their wake. Not very picturesque.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio_ymAxOtn8XT9oJOxkBfMWNwPuIIDnwDEs0K-a73GOcOVdmFIAYJUmzXgG7hrCjhyphenhyphen0F-LncFIDjbt5bcFSqdq4U8vAneB2msPoJULUCoXmpH2j6J0lwQLA9Iy2JWOeW5SzZQhefJzRB4/s1600/mowing+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="182" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio_ymAxOtn8XT9oJOxkBfMWNwPuIIDnwDEs0K-a73GOcOVdmFIAYJUmzXgG7hrCjhyphenhyphen0F-LncFIDjbt5bcFSqdq4U8vAneB2msPoJULUCoXmpH2j6J0lwQLA9Iy2JWOeW5SzZQhefJzRB4/s400/mowing+1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; text-align: left;">Here's an example of the effort wasted on regularly mowing all open</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; text-align: left;">space parcels. With this slope, this land is not usable for pick-up football</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; text-align: left;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">or other informal sporting activities. (p</span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">hoto:Google Maps)</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1f2326; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Public Works justifies their mowing program by saying that they have some residents calling to complain when an area is allowed to revert to natural vegetation and is mowed just once annually to keep unwanted woody vegetation in check. I would not be surprised if many of those callers are the same squeaky wheels that whine about having to pay property taxes to the township.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #1f2326; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We can't have it both ways, though. We can't mow every township-owned parcel weekly, regardless of drought or rain-soaked ground, and then complain the township isn't maintaining pavilions and baseball dugouts in our parks. Unfortunately, the expectation in too many heads is that all public areas will be mowed and manicured to look the way that lawns look on TV. Unfortunately, Hollywood lawns often achieve their perfection with green spray paint and are about as genuine as many of their leading ladies. Golf courses and major league ballparks have been painting their grass for years to avoid any perceived imperfections for their clientele with unrealistic expectations of perfect green turf.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxorYKmnKbNFgXMHTbr5a9lJ5o5a3raxxHQoRR6N4ixBDuyS1jmuSFnENtckLH2Z2QBp8_6K9fm0hDC1cXM4vAv2sfkVdeo03ItHvaUDkw1H-AyiT6_2eZQcvQZhDAUJ2XiGuNKIULo5I/s1600/mowing+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="186" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxorYKmnKbNFgXMHTbr5a9lJ5o5a3raxxHQoRR6N4ixBDuyS1jmuSFnENtckLH2Z2QBp8_6K9fm0hDC1cXM4vAv2sfkVdeo03ItHvaUDkw1H-AyiT6_2eZQcvQZhDAUJ2XiGuNKIULo5I/s400/mowing+2.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The township feels a need to mow stormwater basins as perfectly as</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">they would </span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">their own front yards. More wasted effort.(photo:Google Maps)</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1f2326; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">But a municipality is not a business, and it should not try to compete with the appearance of the turf at golf courses and professional ballparks. A municipality is supposed to maintain publicly owned lands so that they are safe and available for residents to enjoy in a reasonable manner. Mine does a good job maintaining our sports fields. But I do not think that driving past an unused 9-acre parcel and expecting it to look perfectly mowed for the 5 seconds you drive past it justifies spending $1,000 per year of taxpayer money mowing it.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #1f2326; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This year should be the last for the current mowing contract. Hopefully, when the current commissioners consider the 2017 township budget, they will be decline to renew the mowing contract in favor of doing all mowing in-house and on a less frequent basis. The best thing for these fields would be to replant them with </span><span style="color: #1f2326; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">native grasses and </span><span style="color: #1f2326; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">native wildflowers to become meadows that only need to be mowed once per year. Less mowing means cost savings for taxpayers. And wildflowers and native grasses mean food for songbirds and pollinators. That is the kind of picturesque, low-impact habitat that I want my tax dollars supporting.</span>Scott Alderferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17545537207383745803noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3904068358841224370.post-14335306792352348832016-01-20T10:27:00.002-05:002016-01-20T10:27:45.596-05:00Penny Wise and Pound Foolish: Passing Up the Opportunity to De-Develop a Brownfield for Fear of the Unknown<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Most of my posts about
land use deal with issues at my own end of Pennsylvania, in the Lehigh Valley
of eastern PA. But I feel compelled to write about a news article I saw earlier
this week in an environmental news feed I subscribe to. The article was about a
recent land use decision made in the western PA community of McCandless,
located about a dozen miles north of Pittsburgh.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I had no prior knowledge about the piece of land in question, a roughly 33-acre parcel containing a shuttered movie theater surrounded by asphalt. So I googled the site and found <a href="http://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2015/10/19/mccandless-rave-cinemas-sold/" target="_blank">a news story from last October</a> about the original purchase deal that the non-profit Allegheny Land Trust worked out on behalf of the Town of McCandless (McCandless was originally a Township until they adopted a home-rule charter in 1975 and thus became known as a Town. It's one of only two official Towns in PA). The site is bordered to the south by </span><span style="font-family: 'helvetica neue', arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Pine Creek, a tributary of the Allegheny River. </span><span style="font-family: 'helvetica neue', arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">According to the Town Manager, the entire site in located within the creek's designated floodplain. That means that almost the entire 33 acres is impervious surface capping a 100-year floodplain. That's bad, because natural floodplains allow water to percolate into the soil. When undisturbed, they have lots of trees and other vegetation to help absorb flood waters. Yes, natural floodplains can help mitigate flood conditions, and this movie theater appears to have had a history of flooding. Many municipalities prohibit development in 100-year floodplains. I don't know if McCandless has seen the light and updated their zoning ordinances to exclude construction on floodplains since this site was originally developed, but at least they were actively pursuing an opportunity to de-develop (I just made up that word) this property from an</span><span style="font-family: 'helvetica neue', arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'helvetica neue', arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">abandoned and</span><span style="font-family: 'helvetica neue', arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"> completely impervious Brownfield into a green park that would help them manage stormwater and </span><span style="font-family: 'helvetica neue', arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">downstream </span><span style="font-family: 'helvetica neue', arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">flash flooding.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The outline in red is the 33-acre movie theater property in question in McCandless, PA. It's pretty clear that Pine Creek (highlighted in blue) was hijacked and redirected when Rt. 19 was built. It's also pretty clear that McCandless never gave much thought to prohibiting development on floodplains. The movie theater reportedly flooded up to the fifth row of seats (photo credit: Google Maps). </span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: 'helvetica neue', arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">But I guess this de-development was too good to be true. Because </span><a href="http://triblive.com/news/adminpage/9804932-74/property-site-buy#axzz3xYukFwin" style="font-family: 'helvetica neue', arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank">the story that I initially stumbled upon this week</a><span style="font-family: 'helvetica neue', arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"> reported on McCandless's leaders getting a case of cold feet at the prospect of paying for additional soil testing to fully characterize the environmental condition of the site. And I have to acknowledge that most lay people would likely get cold feet when doing the environmental due diligence necessary to consummate a major property acquisition like this one. But if I were a McCandless resident, I would hope that my elected leaders would have consulted</span><span style="font-family: 'helvetica neue', arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"> with professionals to determine whether pulling the plug on this deal was the best way to allay their concerns, albeit the easiest way. Allow me to give you a very brief overview of environmental due diligence for real estate transactions, and then I'll let you decide if the Town Council jumped the gun.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">As part of the purchase of any commercial or industrial property, an environmental site assessment (referred to as a Phase I assessment) would normally be conducted to determine whether there are any physical indications of potential contamination or any public records that might suggest historic operations that may have caused contamination. These sale agreements are usually contingent on the results of the Phase I. If a Phase I turns up any reasons for concern, the buyer generally has two choices: either walk away from the deal completely or perform a Phase II investigation (at the buyer's expense). A Phase II typically involves collecting confirmatory samples of soil and/or groundwater from locations of concern. If contamination above state cleanup standards is confirmed, the seller is usually liable for any cleanup costs if both parties want the deal to go through. If the seller refuses to pay for remediation, the transaction usually dies right there. A good environmental attorney can usually craft a buyer/seller agreement that would become part of the agreement of sale and would lay out </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">target cleanup standards and </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">time schedules for remediation. Or the agreement could even document an agreed upon dollar figure to credit the buyer on the sale price in exchange for the buyer conducting all remediation and thereby absolving the seller of any future liability for the contamination that had been identified. Bottom line is that with two willing parties, a buyer/seller agreement can ensure that the site is cleaned up with no residual liability for the documented contamination for either the buyer or seller. This is a simplified explanation, but it is generally how Pennsylvania's Act 2 Land Recycling program works. In my personal and professional opinion, in Pennsylvania, there is no reason that a willing buyer and a willing seller should ever have a real estate deal collapse over the environmental condition of the subject property.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I don't know exactly what McCandless's Phase I turned up for this site, but I have one idea based on an aerial photo of the site from 1957. In the photo below, I outlined the approximate current property boundaries in red, and Pine Creek is approximately highlighted in blue. The round objects located o</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">n the property immediately east of the theater site appear to be large above-ground storage tanks. There are no obvious tanks on the theater site in this photo, but there appears to be a pond, which would have to be man-made based on the geology and topography in this area. A Phase I would also include a chain of title search and a regulatory database search, both of which are outside of the scope of this blog post (which is now vying for the record of my longest post ever). Although the neighboring storage tanks are shown to have some sort of containment berms around them, containment berms are not foolproof; and it is not likely that these 1950s berms were constructed to current containment standards. If the tank shown to the immediate north of the northeast corner of the theater site had leaked and the berm was breached, the contaminant plume could have migrated to the theater property both over the ground surface and/or below the ground surface. Another question would be whether the former on-site pond was filled in with clean fill or if contaminated fill material was used to level the pond prior to building the movie theater parking lot. So based simply on a quick look at one historical aerial photo of the site, there certainly would be valid reasons to perform confirmatory Phase II sampling. </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is a 1957 aerial photo of the site which shows some large above-ground storage tanks at the property to the immediate east of the current theater property. This photo shows a pond was present o</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">n the theater site in 1957</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">. You know what concerns me the most in this photo? What municipal officials in their right mind allowed a tank farm to be constructed on a floodplain like this? In the 21st century, this tank farm at this location would be called an "epic planning fail." (photo credit: Pennsylvania Geological Survey).</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 16.003px;">The recent article indicated that McCandless has spent nearly $40,000 on preliminary soil sampling and associated legal fees. As an environmental professional, I know that you can install three shallow groundwater monitoring wells and collect and analyze dozens of soil and groundwater samples for under $20,000. I don't know how extensive their Phase II sampling was at this site, but I have to wonder what the legal price tag has been so far. Don't get me wrong, because the legal review is absolutely necessary. However, the cost of legal review is not necessarily indicative of the magnitude of contamination present in the field. In addition to the</span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 16.003px;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 16.003px;">environmental</span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 16.003px;"> due diligence costs, after the </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 16.003px;">$1.25 million sale price for the property,McCandless officials estimated they would incur $400,000 to demolish the theater and its parking lots. Based on my experience with my township's Environmental Advisory Council, I can tell you that Pennsylvania has many grant opportunities </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 16.003px;">for projects like this one</span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 16.003px;">, such as the annual </span><a href="http://www.dep.pa.gov/Citizens/GrantsLoansRebates/Growing-Greener/Pages/default.aspx#.Vp-Z-fkrIdU" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 16.003px;" target="_blank">Growing Greener grant program</a><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 16.003px;">. So the out of pocket cost to McCandless to de-develop this land would very likely have been limited to one-half of the total cost after the matching requirement for any available grants. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I think it's hugely unfortunate that </span><span style="font-family: helvetica neue, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">McCandless is foregoing the extremely rare opportunity to de-develop a brownfield into a greenfield. They currently have 33 acres of floodplain paved and impervious, which surely must be exacerbating flooding downstream from this site. The seller would be responsible for the costs of any necessary remediation. The Town simply had to conduct a reasonably thorough characterization of the current soil and groundwater quality and work out an agreement with the seller to ensure that any contamination identified at concentrations above the state's residential cleanup standards is cleaned up to meet those standards. The Town may even have been able to recover some of those due diligence costs through available grants if they had gone ahead and purchased the land and built the park that was originally proposed. While I certainly do not have all necessary information about the environmental condition of the site to pass judgement on the Town's officials, I have seen enough to have to wonder if they are getting their environmental advice from an environmental professional who has sufficient experience with Pennsylvania's Land Recycling Program (such as myself). </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Cleaning up a contaminated site for future use as a park is not necessarily as easy as cleaning it up for future commercial or industrial use. The residential cleanup standards that must be met for a public park could potentially mean a significantly higher cleanup cost than cleaning up to non-residential standards, in which case the seller might have eventually gotten cold feet. Or the cost differential between meeting residential versus non-residential standards could have been negligible as a percentage of total sale price. However, I would expect this seller would want to bend over backwards to unload a property that is guaranteed to flood and that, hopefully by now, has zoning limitations on its use due to its location in the 100-year floodplain.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">De-development opportunities like this one in McCandless are rare. From my experience, there are very few environmental conditions that cannot be successfully managed when both the buyer and seller of a contaminated property have reasonable expectations and </span><span style="font-family: 'helvetica neue', arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">are willing to work together</span><span style="font-family: 'helvetica neue', arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">. If I was a McCandless resident, you can bet I would have been making myself heard at their recent Town council meeting.</span>Scott Alderferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17545537207383745803noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3904068358841224370.post-29800947505010596692015-10-09T23:27:00.002-04:002015-10-10T11:20:41.209-04:00A Trick to Get More Halloween Treats<div dir="ltr">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I started thinking about this post several weeks ago, around the time that all of the drug store chains and supermarkets started stocking their shelves with Halloween candy and decorations. I was initially thinking ahead to how I can startle trick or treaters walking up to my front door on Halloween night. Then I realized I probably won't get the opportunity to do that, because I expect I'll be accompanying my daughter as she trick or treats.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My daughter is old enough to trick or treat in our neighborhood, unsupervised, with a friend, and there are ample well-lit sidewalks to get her around the development. But she prefers to trick or treat with friends in a different neighborhood. And it's all about efficiency.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkepmWW-FsV4zSrXp9ljWxCCc6eRdY2YJ7n_U3HTvj174SBOChyphenhypheneNrr63OsOpcWT_m1K8nQf1PIE10D8pwBH1k2RTp0v6YL4bhRjoDQvkRHSGw0uuew4sCBLB6MPR4Eq2mxntsabXmtFM/s1600/peanuts.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="204" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkepmWW-FsV4zSrXp9ljWxCCc6eRdY2YJ7n_U3HTvj174SBOChyphenhypheneNrr63OsOpcWT_m1K8nQf1PIE10D8pwBH1k2RTp0v6YL4bhRjoDQvkRHSGw0uuew4sCBLB6MPR4Eq2mxntsabXmtFM/s320/peanuts.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">She can hit up three times as many houses per hour in her friend's neighborhood of townhouses than she can in her own neighborhood of homes on 0.4-acre lots. At the townhouses, with front-loading garages lining the streets, the average distance between the front doors is about 25 feet. Back home, trick or treaters have to walk anywhere from 90 to 130 feet from front door to front door (side-loading garages require much wider lots). And that's assuming the kids cut through the grass from house to house instead of walking back out the driveways to the street (anywhere from 30 to 70 feet) and then up the next driveway and sidewalk to the next front door.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-w1ryNrXIoU_f1zQ1RwnzTXqiKT8wycbAIyyBKRJQM0q2thBVC6qd3QLYwqv2Em35O7HIzwq8KMB3c8SxkpqKGReS0OKBMNeu5xvl8KbbPgYdK_Q6zrwx4aMjvBs4eVLLj2wLt_HYis4/s1600/Brandywine.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="275" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-w1ryNrXIoU_f1zQ1RwnzTXqiKT8wycbAIyyBKRJQM0q2thBVC6qd3QLYwqv2Em35O7HIzwq8KMB3c8SxkpqKGReS0OKBMNeu5xvl8KbbPgYdK_Q6zrwx4aMjvBs4eVLLj2wLt_HYis4/s400/Brandywine.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My neighborhood. Very circuitous trick or treating because of large lots.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Of course this comparison is apples (hopefully candied, without razor blades) to oranges. These two neighborhoods are two different types of homes and two different price ranges. An average of 1,800 square feet of living space to an average of 2,500. And a difference of 0.15-acre lots to 0.41-acre lots. But my point here is the usefulness of the extra 0.26-acres per lot in my neighborhood. If someone wants to have a swimming pool in their yard, they would need that extra quarter of an acre. But as you can see on the aerial photo above, fewer than 10% of the homes in my neighborhood have pools. And sure, it's extra room for kids to play. And that's important. But for the adults, it seems to me that the more distance between homes, the less likely it is that neighbors will get to know each other. Fewer opportunities to converse. Relegated to waving to the guy two houses away (200 feet away) while at the mailboxes. Bigger homes on bigger lots, with less sense of community.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGc47D4gJ3s_KCrfsB_jAV40ojfDpd4Etuiem363sS2xbpXyulXMlhHSmI1SgH8gIt1Rnb9M2LnYDY092Q9OHMtuYhDzA1KCzcvrXnCxd-r-ljwmnqyCcSYvgyoySv-UwU4utB6Uh3jc0/s1600/Spring+Ridge.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGc47D4gJ3s_KCrfsB_jAV40ojfDpd4Etuiem363sS2xbpXyulXMlhHSmI1SgH8gIt1Rnb9M2LnYDY092Q9OHMtuYhDzA1KCzcvrXnCxd-r-ljwmnqyCcSYvgyoySv-UwU4utB6Uh3jc0/s320/Spring+Ridge.png" width="224" /></a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My daughter's friend's neighborhood.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Much more efficient for trick or treating</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">in a development of townhouses. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When I accompany my daughter trick or treating in her friend's neighborhood of townhouses, with front doors just two dozen feet apart, there is a totally different vibe. Many of the neighbors are on their doorsteps or on lawn chairs in their driveways chatting with their neighbors in between groups of ghouls grabbing Mr. Goodbars.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The differences between these two neighborhoods are based on land use decisions that the township made 20-30 years ago when they instituted the current zoning districts with different minimum lot sizes. But regardless of lot sizes, this sort of intense development eats up wildlife habitat. And lawns are a very poor excuse for wildlife habitat. It is crucial to preserve ample green spaces and natural areas in between developments to avoid full-scale sprawl like you see in these two aerial photos. We humans tend to forget that we need trees and natural areas around us to improve our quality of life. My township was primarily agricultural 50 years ago. But as farmers wanted to retire, farms were gradually sold to developers. And some of the best agricultural soil in Pennsylvania has been essentially lost forever. We now have relatively few active farms remaining and have become just another suburb of Allentown, the third largest metropolitan area in Pennsylvania. My township's population is now about 31,000. Our population has increased more than 60% since 2000 thanks to a feeding frenzy of developers fed by a clueless Board of Supervisors.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW5b1eAIKFkjbPGMfwFLCArze6To7R84u50D2ckRBLk5QJpypgAgHRQqRmfKEDyRF3lSj5essUPENZ-OIJoBLKekBPYs28Zfgt1-SXjKqayyH9UP3-IPsaq4ZcFtCneRUcLvz-TnLLAGo/s1600/peanuts2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW5b1eAIKFkjbPGMfwFLCArze6To7R84u50D2ckRBLk5QJpypgAgHRQqRmfKEDyRF3lSj5essUPENZ-OIJoBLKekBPYs28Zfgt1-SXjKqayyH9UP3-IPsaq4ZcFtCneRUcLvz-TnLLAGo/s400/peanuts2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But at least my neighborhood and my daughter's friend's neighborhood have sidewalks. None of the earliest developments in this township, built from the 1960s up to the early 1990s, were required to have sidewalks. Kids in those neighborhoods have to walk in the street when trick or treating. That's the kind of dumb growth you get when municipal leaders fail to lead and simply cave in to pressure from developers to cut corners.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And back home, I guess my daughter will be trick or treating in the neighborhood where she'll have to do less walking to get more candy. Smart girl.</span><br />
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Scott Alderferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17545537207383745803noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3904068358841224370.post-7215023529086884632015-07-05T18:05:00.002-04:002015-07-05T18:05:52.217-04:00The Unhealthy American Fascination with Trophy Lawns<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="color: #1f2326;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Over the past few years we've starting hearing more about how
the fashion industry and Hollywood have created unhealthy idealized body types
for American women. But this unrealistic ideal is not limited to the beauty and fashion industries.</span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZ6VrMbhcfxq30mvSR8CG9TWJQ-8iZnNTTJyzKSnP_AVK-BhiuRFIlUc0Wy0fXySQ-h5DjCu_muYSPKkQzhYWHE660PNg5aKLxbP-hiGhqs63tS4VPaikpp-d3zZ2konLkq7T5kB4Takg/s1600/consumeraffairsdotcom.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZ6VrMbhcfxq30mvSR8CG9TWJQ-8iZnNTTJyzKSnP_AVK-BhiuRFIlUc0Wy0fXySQ-h5DjCu_muYSPKkQzhYWHE660PNg5aKLxbP-hiGhqs63tS4VPaikpp-d3zZ2konLkq7T5kB4Takg/s1600/consumeraffairsdotcom.png" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #292f33;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #292f33;">This Spring I must have gotten two or three pieces of junk mail each week from various lawn care companies that wanted to regularly dispense herbicides and fertilizer on my lawn from now through the Fall. No thanks. I'm happy with my imperfect lawn. In fact, if I could talk my wife into it, I would plant my front yard as a meadow with native grasses and wildflowers and convert my backyard to a wood lot too shady for grass to thrive. </span></span>I'm just not willing to pay for unhealthy chemical treatments for my lawn the way some people are willing to pay for plastic surgery, liposuction, tanning salons, and breast implants.</span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3qkXcqHRxKhHKNInqREJw-GItVx2nPZn5qrajDVfV_3rk5Rpz58KvoPAA2Jq0hfpY46YQEcidhByP_bTkxYCujQ6qeC1SCFvGETpi2PX-ob-sXUMOKtc2QOngRgn3duCfOgau3Q-cv-Q/s1600/Marc+Carlton+2009+foxleas-dot-com.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3qkXcqHRxKhHKNInqREJw-GItVx2nPZn5qrajDVfV_3rk5Rpz58KvoPAA2Jq0hfpY46YQEcidhByP_bTkxYCujQ6qeC1SCFvGETpi2PX-ob-sXUMOKtc2QOngRgn3duCfOgau3Q-cv-Q/s320/Marc+Carlton+2009+foxleas-dot-com.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #292f33;"><br /></span></span>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #292f33;">For those who really want a fake-tan sort of lawn, there are even companies that will spray paint your lawn green (http://lawnpaintpros.com) or companies that will sell you paint for either your lawn or your mulch if you are a DIY-er (http://www.lawnlift.com). Why not? Golf courses sometimes paint their fairways before big tournaments, and outdoor, "natural" turf football stadiums certainly do it for games later in the season.</span></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Photo: Good Nature Organic Lawn Care (www.whygoodnature.com)</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I suspect that the majority of lawn-obsessed homeowners who are not living under drought-imposed water restrictions simply go through the weekly cycle of mowing low and watering without giving it much thought. In my observation, most homeowners and most professional lawn mowing services mow their lawns entirely too short for the health of their grass. Most turf grass experts warn that cutting too much off the length of the grass blades at once and consistently cutting the grass shorter than 2.5 to 3 inches unnecessarily stresses the grass. Stressed grass has shorter roots, so its roots are unable to reach moisture deeper in the soil column. So it requires more frequent watering to prevent browning.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Photo: www-mda-state-mn-us</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Lawns may need supplemental watering if they don't get enough rain each week. That can be accomplished on an as-needed basis with a garden hose and a sprinkler attachment. Or, for people who have invested a lot of money in their lawns, an automatic lawn sprinkler system will certainly help you protect your investment. I think automatic sprinklers can also cause a lot of extra work if it's not used with common sense. I have a neighbor whose sprinkler apparently is set to water twice a day, regardless of precipitation. We live in Pennsylvania, not Arizona. So the result of my neighbor's overwatering, and frequent fertilization, is that he has to mow his lawn with his expensive zero-turn radius mower (with a grass vacuum attachment) twice a week. I don't water my lawn, and I mow with my Craftsman mulching push-mower once a week. And I mow to a 3-inch height. My lawn looks lush more often than it looks scorched. It is far from perfect. But I'm happy with the appearance of my lawn and the level of effort required for that look. I'm not participating in a lawn competition. If my neighbors chose to do so, that's their business. I just hope they are putting that level of effort and money into their lawns because it's their passion and not because they feel like they need to compete with their neighbors for some unrealistic ideal lawn. I wonder whether some of them wouldn't rather be spending their time and money on their families rather than doing battle with Nature over their lawn's appearance. I hope they realize they have a choice.</span><br />
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Scott Alderferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17545537207383745803noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3904068358841224370.post-29956342630643354242015-05-25T07:52:00.001-04:002015-05-25T07:52:31.152-04:00The Power of Trees to Unite a Community<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is a post
about the power of trees. The power of trees to unite a community. The power of
trees to provide hope for the future. The hope that trees will unite a
community going forward into the future.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This post is
actually coming a month late, but I thought it is still worth talking
about. Most states celebrate Arbor Day on the last Friday in April every year.
Arbor Day was first celebrated in Nebraska in 1872 as a way to encourage
communities in the fledgling state to plant trees in the towns that had been
treeless prairies only a few decades before. My own community, Lower Macungie
Township, PA, was primarily rural through much of the 20th century and
focused on agriculture. Since 1971, however, Lower Macungie has gone from
10,521 acres of farmland to less than 3,000 currently. And from 8,814 residents
in 1970 to over 31,000 in 2010. That is a 250% increase in 40 years, compared
to the U.S. population, which increased just 51% in that same 40-year period.
In the first decade of the 21st century, we had the dubious designation of
fastest growing municipality in Pennsylvania.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One of the
results of the rapid and poorly planned development of Lower Macungie over the
past 30 years has been fragmentation. As large farms were gradually sold off to
developers, we saw increasing fragmentation of wildlife habitat as well as
fragmentation of human habitat. Nearly every large residential development
built during the growth years was not connected to the rest of the community by
any means other than automobile. If a development was required to have
sidewalks (which did not happen until the late 1990s), the sidewalks
tended to dead-end at the limits of the project. No forethought was given to
requiring connecting sidewalks to get to adjacent developments or even just to
get outside of the development without having to walk the circuitous sidewalks
though along the streets that were laid out in
patterns reminiscent of a medieval labyrinths. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0x3OmH7KQpFd3wXLezOD_IFx2n7iRGWMTln312ULb70uhMTAoWXyhlNrRXgjBq2qkvVyj7Vxc2GqopH_c2dizCCYi5e2uCUOlBlbZ4iM8pAIg4ZCuETCxdV204rUmuZCqWXECW0feqjM/s1600/xx_epnw_lmtree+028.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0x3OmH7KQpFd3wXLezOD_IFx2n7iRGWMTln312ULb70uhMTAoWXyhlNrRXgjBq2qkvVyj7Vxc2GqopH_c2dizCCYi5e2uCUOlBlbZ4iM8pAIg4ZCuETCxdV204rUmuZCqWXECW0feqjM/s320/xx_epnw_lmtree+028.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Photo credit: Sharon Schrantz, East Penn Press</span></td></tr>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This year the
township’s Environmental Advisory Council (EAC), which I chair, initiated our
first annual Arbor Day event. I felt that beginning an Arbor Day tradition in
the township could be a way to address two concerns I have: it would add
back a small bit of the nature we’ve lost through the past decades of
development, and it would be an opportunity for residents from different
developments to join together to celebrate planting a new tree in a
township-owned open space.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The EAC selected
a location for our Arbor Day tree that is near the only elementary school in
the township that has sidewalks leading to it and which is safely by foot from
at least six different developments. Had it not been for the school being
built five years ago, this area would still not have any sidewalks connecting
the surrounding developments. The location we chose for our Arbor Day
tree is an underutilized parcel that the builder of an adjacent development had
to donate to the township as ”recreational open space,” primarily because
a floodplain separates it from the rest of the development. The parcel is about
6.5 acres if you don’t count a stormwater channel bordering it on one side.
Because the parcel is categorized as recreational open space, the Public
Works Department mows it regularly all summer long, whether it needs it or not.
In the 10 years I’ve lived here, however, I’ve never seen anyone use the parcel
for recreation.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPGbawSagDVo2WWizcnOfrAluqbqO0FI8zTDC1cUBm5cv35wCcjVpJYFuuVWk2x8CIzDjcBzgosStBwUYd42taelk9qC28dsVy3w9x0TpoN9E90wUcvV9agF7nmrhx-4xCNjGjWaJqF4Y/s1600/xx_epnw_lmtree+008.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPGbawSagDVo2WWizcnOfrAluqbqO0FI8zTDC1cUBm5cv35wCcjVpJYFuuVWk2x8CIzDjcBzgosStBwUYd42taelk9qC28dsVy3w9x0TpoN9E90wUcvV9agF7nmrhx-4xCNjGjWaJqF4Y/s320/xx_epnw_lmtree+008.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Photo credit: Sharon Schrantz, East Penn Press</span></td></tr>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Our Arbor Day
celebration on April 24 this year opened with a soloist from the local high
school chorus (who happens to be my niece) singing the National Anthem, and with
local Boy Scout Troop 131 presenting the American flag for the pledge of
allegiance. The centerpiece of our celebration was our Arbor Day tree for
2015:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>a northern red oak (Quercus rubra)
that was placed in a pre-dug hole.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Following
a few words from local dignitaries, we asked all in attendance to take a turn
with a shovel and toss in some dirt to help backfill the tree. By adding even a
handful of soil to the tree’s root ball, everyone present had taken place in
planting the tree. And by doing so, they are part of the legacy of hope for
future generations of residents who will enjoy the tree’s beauty and shade.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Our plan is to
select different locations in coming years to plant the township’s future Arbor
Day trees – locations that can be accessed by at least two surrounding
neighborhoods so that people from different developments can be drawn to the
beauty the trees will offer and enjoy the birds that will also share the trees
with the community. H opefully, the 30 or so residents who attended our first
annual celebration this year will seek out future celebrations and will bring
their friends and neighbors.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcaO-qjttQvC08ZIbTjMoHrZDCfjs_jbUpwcMME0takZHTBOxuOVECDMxfvCOw3hdLVDPN9YelmhdQNekYgcpBUWTN63kEuV-Us0KJYMgTXIQCBRhoeeElQsx7JHVR64qKufYz4oVwxxA/s1600/MCall+group+pic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcaO-qjttQvC08ZIbTjMoHrZDCfjs_jbUpwcMME0takZHTBOxuOVECDMxfvCOw3hdLVDPN9YelmhdQNekYgcpBUWTN63kEuV-Us0KJYMgTXIQCBRhoeeElQsx7JHVR64qKufYz4oVwxxA/s400/MCall+group+pic.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Photo credit: Addison George, Morning Call (www.mcall.com)</span><span style="text-align: justify;"> </span></td></tr>
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Scott Alderferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17545537207383745803noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3904068358841224370.post-19954946169932045032015-04-12T21:41:00.002-04:002015-04-12T21:42:11.862-04:00Grass Roots Science Denial Blocks Dam Removal<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #10131a; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">Science denial is not the exclusive realm of global
climate change.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A recent proposal
pitched to a neighboring township by a local conservation organization to
remove a 111-year old concrete dam was met with a very vocal outcry from locals
who want things to remain just as they are.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #10131a; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.mcall.com/news/local/parkland/mc-decision-made-to-save-wehrs-dam-is-south-whitehall-20150318-story.html?track=rss" target="_blank">Here</a> is the link to the newspaper story about the township's decision last month. And here is</span><span style="color: #10131a; font-family: Helvetica;"> my perspective:</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4AHQXWa4zNYC3JjaPbapgQFsUFJLFUpqq4AiIqZ6ariZTICKQy9iL8KUWGN4DyVyGK7YgjBuY04zsD10hqGgF90gdtNx10Wn4vKVJB1EmyRbUc2MuG-1jKfPmy08-mwTiKY9F7VpVnAc/s1600/mc-wehrs-dam-wildlands-conservancy-kocher-yv-1007-20141007.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4AHQXWa4zNYC3JjaPbapgQFsUFJLFUpqq4AiIqZ6ariZTICKQy9iL8KUWGN4DyVyGK7YgjBuY04zsD10hqGgF90gdtNx10Wn4vKVJB1EmyRbUc2MuG-1jKfPmy08-mwTiKY9F7VpVnAc/s1600/mc-wehrs-dam-wildlands-conservancy-kocher-yv-1007-20141007.jpeg" height="225" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Wehr's dam and Wehr's Covered Bridge, South Whitehall Township, PA</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">(photo credit: mcall.com)</span></div>
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<span style="color: #10131a; font-family: Helvetica;">Last year, the Wildlands Conservancy, a local non-profit group proposed
to South Whitehall Township’s Board of Commissioners conducting a feasibility
study on removing Wehr’s dam on the Jordan Creek in South Whitehall.</span><span style="color: #10131a; font-family: Helvetica;"> </span><span style="color: #10131a; font-family: Helvetica;">Wehr’s dam was built at the beginning of the
20</span><sup style="color: #10131a; font-family: Helvetica;">th</sup><span style="color: #10131a; font-family: Helvetica;"> century to power Wehr’s grist mill, which had stood nearby but was
demolished decades ago.</span><span style="color: #10131a; font-family: Helvetica;"> </span><span style="color: #10131a; font-family: Helvetica;">A covered
bridge, which also bears the Wehr name, is still in use 150 feet downstream
from the dam. The township created a park centered on the aesthetics of the dam
and covered bridge. </span><span style="color: #10131a; font-family: Helvetica;"> </span><span style="color: #10131a; font-family: Helvetica;">The Jordan Creek is
a popular trout stream which is stocked by the state. But there is really no
chance for a native population of trout to subsist in this spring-fed creek,
because the dam causes the water in the Jordan to back up, stagnate, and warm
up to summer water temperatures that trout cannot tolerate. The South Whitehall
commissioners approved letting Wildlands carry out the feasibility study. But
even at that preliminary step, a local blogger who thinks he has an axe to
grind with Wildlands Conservancy began crying foul and riling up the opposition
with accusations that Wildlands practices junk science. Interesting how people
who cannot, or refuse to, understand science often resort to claims of junk
science or academic dishonesty. In addition to the blogger, some descendants of
the Mr .Wehr who built the dam began a petition drive seeking to prevent the
dam’s removal.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #10131a; font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">I heard only one rational voice opposing the dam
removal. My friend Mike Siegel questioned whether the Jordan Creek, in the
absence of the dam, would carry enough water during summer low flows to sustain
a population of fish. That’s because, depending on local groundwater
conditions, it’s not unheard of for steams flowing over limestone bedrock to sometimes
disappear into a sink hole and re-emerge further downstream out of another
sinkhole.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When that happens to a steam,
the fish usually just hunker down in deep pools in segments of the creek that have
water in the summer months. I didn’t take the time to drive to the South
Whitehall municipal building to read the feasibility report put together by
Wildlands Conservancy and their engineering consultant. So I’m not sure whether
the bedrock hydrology was even considered in the report.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I don’t think trout would be likely to
get stuck high & dry by a temporarily disappearing stream. That’s because
trout will always seek out the coldest water, which, in an area underlain by
limestone, would be wherever the nearest spring is feeding the creek. Based on
the emotional outcry of people opposing the dam’s removal, it doesn’t sound
like the stream’s hydrology even figured into the decision by the township
Commissioners to turn down Wildlands’ offer to remove the dam at no cost to the
township.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #10131a; font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">While it's refreshing to see commissioners consider
residents' wishes in a decision, I think four of these five commissioners voted
based on sentiment rather than facts. In this case, a non-profit organization
with proven experience in removing low-head dams was offering to remove this
mass of crumbling concrete at no cost to the township. Turning away
"free" money to remove a financial liability like this deteriorating
dam was an irresponsible vote that will cost the South Whitehall taxpayers
plenty when they are facing with removing the failing structure in the future.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With this vote, the commissioners chose to
blatantly disregard science in favor of a nostalgic alternative reality that
the most outspoken people attending the meeting that night wanted to
believe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In doing so, they voted to
commit their taxpayers to fight a losing battle against the natural
deterioration of pile of rocks and concrete blocking a good trout stream that
could be a better trout stream.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #10131a; font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">The </span><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"></span><span style="color: #2d4486; font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Wildlands Conservancy</span><span style="color: #10131a; font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">'s study included an
underwater survey of the dam, which is not part of the PA Department of
Environmental Protection’s routine dam inspection program. So with new data
that proved their dam is in poor repair, particularly below the waterline where
it is more difficult to monitor, it seems that the majority of residents who
weighed in still sided with their emotions rather than science. It seems very
much like the climate change stalemate in the U.S. If some people cannot see
something, particularly something abstract, they won't believe it. Not even if scientists
and engineers have verified the risks. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here is my favorite line from the Morning Call
story:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #10131a; font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">"The rest of the board sided with Commissioner
Glenn Block, who said he wasn’t convinced by the findings that removing the dam
wouldn’t increase flood risk."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMFfwIYc3xFpbvOb9E7OWijpAL2vFQrwCF1m6c0inmelAITm3bExzg32JCD75uvfVUCFTkIsKPmm5tM4WtHDGHTTU62LDQHE6hQIA0Eqi3UEbAhBm0ZN4ckUP-JJBRcwxAJWNuG3hHrpg/s1600/danger_dam.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMFfwIYc3xFpbvOb9E7OWijpAL2vFQrwCF1m6c0inmelAITm3bExzg32JCD75uvfVUCFTkIsKPmm5tM4WtHDGHTTU62LDQHE6hQIA0Eqi3UEbAhBm0ZN4ckUP-JJBRcwxAJWNuG3hHrpg/s1600/danger_dam.jpg" height="265" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wehr's Dam, with sign warning, "Danger Dam - No Boating, No Swimming, No Wading." (photo credit: Wildlands Conservancy, as published on LehighValleyLive.com)</span></td></tr>
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<span style="color: #10131a; font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">I don't know Mr. Block's professional background, but
he appears to be neither a scientist nor an engineer. And he clearly doesn't
want to allow science to interfere with his political popularity. So actually,
South Whitehall's commissioners had the opportunity to do the right thing, although the right thing (IMO) in this case would have been unpopular with the
standing room only crowd. So their commissioners voted 4-1 to keep their heads
in the sand despite having been shown the risks and having been given an
opportunity to avoid the financial burden of maintaining a deteriorating dam indefinitely into the future.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I live in neighboring Lower Macungie, so at
least my tax dollars won't have to pay for the extensive
maintenance. Or the potential law suit when someone is injured as a result of
the dam. I wonder if the Wehr family would be so insistent about no removing the dam if they still owned it and were responsible for the
dam’s maintenance costs and liability.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #10131a; font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"><br /></span></div>
Scott Alderferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17545537207383745803noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3904068358841224370.post-86039372490993733492015-04-02T23:37:00.000-04:002015-04-02T23:37:26.238-04:00PA's Marcellus Drillers Show Half-hearted Commitment to U.S. Piping Industry<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I think the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette does a good job of
covering the natural gas industry in Pennsylvania, and I often find articles on
their website that catch my attention. A couple weeks ago <a href="http://powersource.post-gazette.com/powersource/policy-powersource/2015/03/15/Where-do-Pennsylvania-oil-and-gas-drillers-get-their-pipe/stories/201503080097">I
saw a story on their website</a> about the source of the steel pipe (casing)
that drillers use to construct both the vertical and horizontal portions of
their hydraulic fracturing natural gas wells here in Pennsylvania.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Prior to being elected to the state senate in 2010, Jim
Brewster was mayor of McKeesport, a struggling post-industrial borough on the
Monongahela River less than 10 miles southeast of Pittsburgh. Brewster learned
last summer that the U.S. Steel plant in McKeesport, which produced pipe used
in the natural gas industry, was about to shut down. U.S. Steel officials later
told Brewster that a big part of their decision to close the plant, putting
175-200 workers in his district in the unemployment line, was that the oil
& gas industry was buying a lot of foreign-produced pipe.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Marcellus Shale Coalition, an industry group
representing the natural gas industry in PA, released a report last summer indicating
that 90 percent of the casing used by their members was manufactured in North
America. But they acknowledged that not all casing diameters are readily manufactured
in the U.S. or even in North America (North America is doublespeak for Canada,
and Russian interests own several piping mills in Canada). So Sen. Brewster had
his staff do some further research.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The senator’s staff looked at well completion records on
file with PADEP going back to 2012 when drillers were first required to identify
the country of origin for the steel casing they used in their gas wells.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I know from my own experience with the crews
who drill environmental test wells that drillers are not necessarily very
detail oriented. Many of them would be quick to tell you that their job is to
make a hole in the ground, not to document how they did it. So I was not
surprised to read that Brewster’s staff found well records for only 1,196 of 4,473
gas wells (26.7%) drilled between October 2012 and October 2014. And in those
well records, only 709 records (15.9% of the total wells) were complete with the
country of origin for their casings. Prior to passage of Act 13 in 2012, the
country of origin of the casing used to construct gas wells was considered a
business secret.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>From the 709 complete
well records, Brewster’s staff found:</span></div>
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<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: -0.25in;">348 wells used exclusively American-made steel
(49.1%); </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: -0.25in;">133 wells used foreign-made steel (18.8%); and </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: -0.25in;">228 used a combination of U.S. and foreign-made
steel (32.1%).</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></li>
</ul>
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgET-oGCfQCmJexhDplmGMpMXt32ABSURjNVyvKpamwUS4oXbAFOEBXZgzA8knLChLzQPRg9S0FYZJ5Y0ElUZrhqG4dR2Plmpw1W3Ftzu60UobrHw6GHS-_vUUvQHZsK536d5ZCxgf6tpI/s1600/casing+schematic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgET-oGCfQCmJexhDplmGMpMXt32ABSURjNVyvKpamwUS4oXbAFOEBXZgzA8knLChLzQPRg9S0FYZJ5Y0ElUZrhqG4dR2Plmpw1W3Ftzu60UobrHw6GHS-_vUUvQHZsK536d5ZCxgf6tpI/s1600/casing+schematic.jpg" height="330" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Source: <span style="border: 0px; color: #393939; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">MIT Research Study, Natural Gas, Chapter 2, cited on</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">http://oilprice.com/Energy/Natural-Gas/Why-Shale-Gas-is-the-Best-Hope-for-Our-Energy-Future.html</span></span></td></tr>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In fairness, sourcing the steel casing for gas wells is not
as simple as backing a truck up to the local Home Depot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It takes hundreds to thousands of feet of
several diameters of casing to build just one horizontal well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And under the duress of demand, the limited
supply of some diameters of steel casing could drive some drilling companies to
seek out foreign supplies. These wells might typically begin with a 20-inch
diameter casing cemented into the ground down to about 100 feet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then a nominal 16-inch borehole is drilled
through the 20-inch casing to about 1,000 feet, and a 16-inch diameter steel
casing is cemented into place to that depth. Then as the well is extended
deeper, the borehole is telescoped progressively smaller such that casings of 10
3/4 inch and 7 5/8 inch diameters are used.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>By the time the well nears the depth at which it will begin to deflect
from vertical to horizontal, a 5 ½ inch casing is used.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The horizontal runs, of which there are typically
two extending from one initial vertical well bore, can run out 5,000 to 6,000
feet laterally. In Pennsylvania, the horizontal well bores are usually at
depths ranging from 6,000 to 9,000 feet below ground. So each well pad uses
tens of thousands of feet of steel casing to construct the wells below them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX6kJKF7FpHZseUllOw8y2qtbqp6UiQK8kp1A-mjMR30vySDSLwGENTHql9AJ-r00lwnH3o-WUFmzWO5kS0i0kyFL3bkbFMpA4TG9hn9FvxiWpEEaXFBm8XCyhLpLWUPgDTegZtT2Zjc0/s1600/drillingpads2.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX6kJKF7FpHZseUllOw8y2qtbqp6UiQK8kp1A-mjMR30vySDSLwGENTHql9AJ-r00lwnH3o-WUFmzWO5kS0i0kyFL3bkbFMpA4TG9hn9FvxiWpEEaXFBm8XCyhLpLWUPgDTegZtT2Zjc0/s1600/drillingpads2.png" height="345" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (<a href="http://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CAYQjB0&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.eia.gov%2Ftodayinenergy%2Fdetail.cfm%3Fid%3D7910&ei=QAUeVYz-H-7jsATuzIKwDg&psig=AFQjCNGARudAG1G-5YfIRlz_FHCOPBnaYw&ust=1428117182205277">www.eia.gov</a>)</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">With the miles of steel casing needed for just one fracking
well, a commitment from drilling companies to U.S. piping manufacturers can
translate into hundreds of U.S. jobs saved. It seems like a commitment to the
U.S. economy should be important to an industry that promised us that
developing the Marcellus Shale gas play in Pennsylvania would be the state’s
pathway to energy independence. But with pipelines being planned in PA to
transport our Marcellus gas to export terminals for overseas markets, it seems
like PA is missing out on some of the jobs and some of the long-term supply of
gas we were promised when this drilling boom began in earnest seven years
ago.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></div>
<br />
<o:p></o:p>Scott Alderferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17545537207383745803noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3904068358841224370.post-72630343989526351472015-01-22T23:32:00.003-05:002015-01-24T23:39:44.986-05:00Big Step Forward for Preserving Some of Lower Macungie's Open Space<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I really wasn't expecting to update last night's blog so soon. But at tonight's Lower Macungie Board of Commissioners meeting, Commissioner Jim Lancsek, who had previously spoken against efforts to preserve open space, presented a proposal to move open space preservation efforts forward.<br /><br />Lancsek's proposal, which will have to go to the Board of Commissioners' Budget & Finance Committee for review and then a recommendation back to the board, suggested taking advantage of historically low interest rates for a bond issue or other financing options and possibly using surplus funds to preserve three key properties in the township. Lancsek said he doesn't support preserving open space without a functional purpose. But he would support buying development rights for farms that, if fully developed with three or four single family homes per acre, would create excessive traffic problems for the township. He also said that he thinks it would be appropriate for the township to purchase in fee simple parcels adjacent to existing township parks so that those parks could be expanded.<br /><br />The township's Environmental Advisory Council, which I chair, sent the commissioners a recommendation in spring of 2013 to allow a voter referendum to ask the residents whether they would support a fractional increase in our Earned Income Tax for a 5-year period to fund open space preservation. That recommendation was stuck in the Budget & Finance Committee until tonight when the Budget & Finance Committee recommended to the full board that no action be taken on the EAC's 2013 recommendation. Likewise, another potential open space funding recommendation that the EAC sent to the commissioners last year, which involved earmarking all real estate transfer taxes from a 700-acre commercial and residential subdivision that was previously zoned for Agricultural Preservation, was finally rejected by the commissioners. And I couldn't be happier.</span><br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm happy because the commissioners themselves looked for and found a viable means of funding preservation of some key properties in the township. The EAC had discussed recommending a bond issue to get all of the needed funding up front to preserve several properties at once, but we thought that incurring debt would be frowned upon by more people than would take issue with a minor Earned Income Tax bump. And when I say minor, I'm talking about the price of one large two-topping pizza per month for someone earning the median income in our community. But that route would not have accumulated enough money to move forward with acquisitions for a few years. Mr. Lancsek's proposal could potentially get the money needed to preserve two properties borrowed and in the budget for next year.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This new proposal isn't a slam dunk by any means, but it is a very encouraging sign that one of </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">our Board of Commissioners' </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">biggest critics of open space preservation over the past three years has finally acknowledged the residents' wishes and stepped forward with an aggressive proposal that could make a real difference in what Lower Macungie will look like when we are fully built out in 20-30 years. In three decades we might just have a few green patches remaining to separate the warehouses and cookie cutter houses from each other.</span></div>
Scott Alderferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17545537207383745803noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3904068358841224370.post-6442363318087335832015-01-21T23:25:00.003-05:002015-01-21T23:34:47.700-05:00Why are Some Politicians Afraid of Voter Referendums?<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I've blogged previously about my efforts with Lower Macungie Township's Environmental Advisory Council (EAC), which I chair, to try to get a formal open space preservation program up and running in our township. We sent a recommendation to our township's Board of Commissioners back in April 2013, urging the commissioners to authorize a voter referendum about whether we should initiate a modest increase in our earned income tax (EIT) for a five-year period to fund open space preservation in our community. That proposal has been hamstrung in the commissioners' Budget & Finance Committee ever since.</span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1_SKVJ0Rdsh_AmfeXkrYUPl2U4ncuXTZ-eAK3kUgnKa5OplaCWJiAbETTQvvKnedXaFo7pjOUZJwwk3Is6fkNESi7FCARiwUiJwlJ1phZYoKz7KIzl6vuJ3rfqO1q1f57rlpsla5779Y/s1600/lower-macungie-farm-jpg-20150121.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1_SKVJ0Rdsh_AmfeXkrYUPl2U4ncuXTZ-eAK3kUgnKa5OplaCWJiAbETTQvvKnedXaFo7pjOUZJwwk3Is6fkNESi7FCARiwUiJwlJ1phZYoKz7KIzl6vuJ3rfqO1q1f57rlpsla5779Y/s1600/lower-macungie-farm-jpg-20150121.jpg" height="225" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">An endangered way of life in Lower Macungie Township<br />(photo credit: Morning Call).</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Specifically, what the EAC wants to do is have the township partner with the county's Bureau of Agricultural Land Preservation to be able to make offers to township farmers to purchase the development rights for their land. The county's farmland preservation program has a cap on how much they can offer per acre for development rights. In some of the more rural northern townships in Lehigh County, they might be able to offer enough to get a couple of farmers interested. But here in Lower Macungie, our undeveloped land is some of the most expensive in the county. The county program cannot compete here in Lower Macungie, so the township needs to ante up if we want to buy development rights for any of our remaining farms. When a farmer sells their development rights, they would still own the land and may use it in any manner than want. They just cannot subdivide it for a housing development. So when they eventually sell the farm, it would be sold as a farm rather than as building lots. We think it's the ideal free market solution to preserving some of our remaining farms. It is totally voluntary on the land owners' part. If they don't want to see their family farm bulldozed and built on but they need money to fund their retirement, selling their development rights and keeping their farm is a great option.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But Lower Macungie needs a source of revenue to be able to work with the county to make offers to our farmers for their development rights. We have proposed a temporary, 0.25 percent increase in our EIT for a period of 5 years, which could preserve a few of our farms. This exact funding mechanism has been approved in voter referendums in seven of 10 Lehigh Valley townships that have put it on the ballot. And the only way the EIT increase could continue after 5 years is by another voter referendum authorizing a finite extension. But before anything else, we need to get the question on the ballot to ask the Lower Macungie voters. I'm very disappointed that some of our commissioners are refusing to let the residents have a voice at the polls on a matter than most of the commissioners really don't seem to care about.<br /><br />The two commissioners on the Budget & Finance Committee are unashamedly pro-development, so I don't think there is any interest in that committee in preserving farmland. In fact, one of those commissioners has publicly said that we already have enough open space. That statement is either incredibly naaive or incredibly arrogant. Because most of the farmland that we see when we drive around Lower Macungie has been zoned for several decades to allow either 12,000-square-foot or 18,000-square-foot residential lots. All it would take is the farmer holding up the white flag and saying, "I've had enough. I'm ready to cash in."<br /><br />Three of our commissioners have also said that they oppose voter referendums for any reason at all. One of them has famously said that they are elected to make the tough decisions, and that not enough voters turn out at the polls for a referendum to mean anything. But using his logic, we could just as easily argue that the voters who turned out to elect each of them are not sufficient to constitute a mandate for them to make this sort of decision.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The question of whether to fund a farmland preservation program is actually much bigger than whether the township should buy a new dump truck, install a new traffic light, or even install an expensive artificial turf athletic field. Because whether or not we decide to fund preservation of our remaining farmland is a decision that will mold, one way or the other, what the township looks like in 20 years when there are no more buildable parcels of land bigger than 10 acres. In 20 years, will we still have a few open farm fields here and there? Or will we have nearly continuous expanses of vinyl boxes clustered around cul-de-sacs spitting out more cars to clog our already inadequate roads? The residents have a lot at stake here, because a fully built out township, and the traffic nightmares and crowded schools that accompany that scenario, will certainly devalue our properties. Isn't that something that the Lower Macungie voters have a right to decide for themselves? Or maybe this will be the year that our elected officials surprise me and step up with their own plan to preserve open space in Lower Macungie. I'll keep you posted.<br /></span>Scott Alderferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17545537207383745803noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3904068358841224370.post-83816100887512712492014-11-03T19:04:00.002-05:002014-11-03T19:04:26.348-05:00How New Development Can Help Fund Farmland Preservation<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It seems like an oxymoron, but there is an opportunity to score funding for a municipality's Farmland Preservation Fund when a greenfield is sold to a developer. At least there is here in Pennsylvania with how our real estate transfer tax is divvied up after a property sale. In PA, the buyer and seller each pay a 1% transfer tax. Of that 2%, the municipality gets one half and the local school district gets the other half. For larger municipalities or places with large commercial or industrial properties that change hands from time to time, the local cut of the real estate transfer tax can be a nice supplemental revenue stream.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u>Back Story</u></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I've blogged previously about a seemingly shady land deal that happened in 2010 here in Lower Macungie Township, so if you've already read about this back story please feel free to skip to the next section. Lower Macungie is 22.6 square miles and is home to nearly 31,000 people. Over the past 20 years, we've experienced a lot of farmland being lost to developments - mostly residential, but some commercial and light industrial too. In 2010, the township's Board of Commissioners entered into a closed-door re-zoning agreement with the owner of the largest contiguous tract of agricultural land in our township, about 700 acres, nearly all of which was zoned for agricultural preservation.</span> <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<![endif]--><!--StartFragment--><span style="font-family: Arial;">That land is now zoned as
light industrial, highway commercial, and residential.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial;">What did the
township get out of that deal? The guarantee that the land owner, one
of the largest land owners and speculators in the two-county Lehigh
Valley, would withdraw his proposal to build a quarry on that land.
But that quarry proposal was just a bluff. If he had built a quarry,
which was allowed under the agricultural zoning, it could only have been a fraction
of the size he originally proposed,</span> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">because: (1) there is a major petroleum pipeline easement running directly through the tract; and (2) I doubt that he could not have gotten approval from the PA Department of Environmental Protection (PADEP) to dewater the quarry to a workable depth without completely dewatering the adjacent Little Lehigh Creek, designated by PADEP as a High Quality Cold Water Fishery. But the board of five commissioners at that time included three Realtors. The Realtors would be getting more inventory into the local real estate market if the land was developed, so it certainly worked out for them. Let's not even start talking about how the local farm roads cannot currently handle the truck traffic from the nearby warehouses that have already been built in the area. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u>A Warehouse Grows on a Farm Field</u></span><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdGi5gTUwibUdu7x-k46yImMvb4WpgjnHjbLMvATa78_G47gv3MoexP1uCaKOIamU9-1XYsinj3_Nyb1GB8p74UmsAruDCWETafhORjG5JOJrVSQ1uGKBqwJWbqbamF3sawlQrnK3zKtw/s1600/Land_MCall.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdGi5gTUwibUdu7x-k46yImMvb4WpgjnHjbLMvATa78_G47gv3MoexP1uCaKOIamU9-1XYsinj3_Nyb1GB8p74UmsAruDCWETafhORjG5JOJrVSQ1uGKBqwJWbqbamF3sawlQrnK3zKtw/s1600/Land_MCall.jpg" height="265" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Part of 700 acres of land in Lower Macungie Township that used to</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">be zoned </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">for agricultural preservation but is about </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">to be developed</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">into several large warehouses. (photo credit: www.mcall.com)</span></div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Three light-industrial parcels that were subdivided from 700 acres of formerly preserved agricultural land have been sold to a developer and are going through the approvals for construction of large warehouses. These will be the first of several light industrial parcels and commercial parcels sold and developed. E</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">ventually there will be 400 new homes as well. All of these new greenfield projects are thanks to our previous Board of Commissioners that facilitated the sweetheart rezoning deal for our local land baron, who has an industrial-scale turkey farm that he tends to when he is not planning his next greenfield development project. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Over the last several decades</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">this nominal turkey farmer, and his late father before him, made a habit of buying thousands of acres of local farmland, farming the land for a while, and then selling the land off to developers when the time seems right. At least half of the 700 acres involved in the 2010 rezoning deal had already been zoned for agricultural preservation when the land baron originally bought the land. And he has the clout to get Realtors who moonlight as local politicians to bow before him, kiss his ring, and rezone land - without even requiring him to pay to upgrade the local roads that would service the land he wants to develop. But this is all in the past now. So how do we make lemonade out of this lemon of a rezoning deal?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj00oJwln9j_iQfbtTcScWJntuucNJTyl63M3hBnNdjPo_0p669memQjeS5iLPCEn5dlRxsqDimwrCxZN9J0rQeKciJy6vqG950DpkTozUhT1vj_lzWK3wKcIGuKpzpn5p6-gvhjDRVajw/s1600/warehouseplans_WFMZ.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj00oJwln9j_iQfbtTcScWJntuucNJTyl63M3hBnNdjPo_0p669memQjeS5iLPCEn5dlRxsqDimwrCxZN9J0rQeKciJy6vqG950DpkTozUhT1vj_lzWK3wKcIGuKpzpn5p6-gvhjDRVajw/s1600/warehouseplans_WFMZ.jpg" height="225" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Plans for new warehouses on land formerly zoned for agricultural preservation</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">in Lower Macungie Township. (photo credit: WFMZ.com)</span></div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">By the time the 700 acres of formerly preserved farmland is fully developed, the township's total share of the real estate transfer tax revenue could be as much as $600,000. So far we've already seen $120,000 come into the township coffers from this revenue stream. Since the residents of Lower Macungie were shafted on this rezoning deal that will convert 700 acres of farmland to sprawling warehouses, strip commercial boxes, and 400 homes with kids to burden the local schools, shouldn't the proceeds from the real estate taxes be used to offset that loss of open space? All real estate tax revenue from these former 700 acres of preserved farmland should be designated for a farmland preservation lockbox and used to help to purchase development rights from other local farms.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Unfortunately, $600,000 will be a drop in the bucket to purchase enough development rights to make a difference, but it is critical that we begin with the real estate tax revenue from this poster child for poor land use decisions and use it as seed money for a deliberate and defined effort to slow down the pace of greenfield development within our community. If we can start with earmarking this real estate transfer tax, we can then have a more serious discussion about a referendum to ask voters to authorize an earned income tax to more fully fund farmland preservation in our community. Save it or pave it.</span>Scott Alderferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17545537207383745803noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3904068358841224370.post-79973053936695115232014-10-10T23:16:00.000-04:002014-10-10T23:16:00.131-04:00Political Attack on PA's Riparian Buffers Requires Immediate Action<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Pennsylvania
state Senate is poised to vote on a bill that would remove protections for
riparian buffers along streams designated as High Quality (HQ) and Exceptional
Value (EV). These are the kinds of streams that support naturally
reproducing populations of trout and have the macroinvertibrate diversity to
sustain trout populations.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCHKQBXZnTudKCs_RHA0fe5RS3crENDbjlYqlUqlFB7qKnUPd4ZQe1Dz7GEGJMHk_Aq28JsxdqEHWMuP7o123oUF9RSehoUMz27tgcuhsgZ9VD2usaxRdpfLkoyVaR6_pWdCuO9KceJzU/s1600/HahnPort_Oct2011.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCHKQBXZnTudKCs_RHA0fe5RS3crENDbjlYqlUqlFB7qKnUPd4ZQe1Dz7GEGJMHk_Aq28JsxdqEHWMuP7o123oUF9RSehoUMz27tgcuhsgZ9VD2usaxRdpfLkoyVaR6_pWdCuO9KceJzU/s1600/HahnPort_Oct2011.jpg" height="200" width="141" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">State Rep. Marcia Hahn (R-Northampton)</span></td></tr>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">HB1565 was
introduced by Rep. Marcia Hahn (R-Northampton) and approved by the House last
month.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The bill is now before the state
Senate and could be voted on as early as next Tuesday when the Senate
reconvenes after their Columbus Day weekend break.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If passed, the bill would eliminate the
requirement for a 150-foot wide riparian buffer between a project involving earth
disturbance and an adjacent EV or HQ stream.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“We have seen
significant frustrations under the current regulations as businesses,
landowners and homebuyers alike have expressed their concerns with the riparian
buffer requirements and the negative impacts they have on development and land
use in many areas of the Commonwealth,” said Hahn. “Oftentimes, this has been
seen as an instance of eminent domain without compensation as landowners could
be prevented from using their own property.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #0e0f14; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">No,
Rep. Hahn. This is nothing like eminent domain. What we have now is a
regulation that protects environmentally sensitive waters of the Commonwealth
and the fish and other organisms living in and around them from irresponsible
land uses that would degrade the downstream portions of these streams. A
landowner does not have the right to use their property in a manner that poses
a real threat of degrading HQ and EV waterways. For Rep. Hahn to
posture this bill as a landowner rights issue ignores the fact that </span>Pennsylvania's<span style="color: #0e0f14; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> natural resources, including
its waterways, are “</span>the common property of all the people, including generations yet to come
(Article 1, Section 27 of the PA Constitution).”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Therefore, no landowner has the right to conduct
activities on their land that can cause sedimentation or contaminants to enter
EV or HQ streams.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Other than that, they
may use their property in any legal manner they chose.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Earlier this week,
HB1565 was amended and voted out in the Senate Environmental Resources &
Energy Committee. The amendments, however, could not repair a bill
that is fundamentally detrimental to environmentally sensitive waterways. The
two amendments did the following:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(1) Clarified
that replacement buffers must occur along special protection waters within the
same drainage list. This means that buffers could be destroyed in one tributary
of a main EV or HQ stream as long as the developer beefs up buffers in a
section of another tributary of the same main stream. This is a nonsensical
compromise. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(2) Allowed a
concession that alternative Best Management Practices can be substituted
instead of a buffer as long as the alternatives used are “collectively…substantially
equivalent to a riparian buffer…” This amendment essentially recognizes that
riparian buffers are the most effective management tool. So then why compromise
at all and remove protections for riparian buffers?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6a40Y3AgeZBkhCDb51k5wF8ak45XBf8AfD6kdril164Z6fPKmpT_E3Wr5_maqHZb9-cTnCayfsX-2pbzSKrasDSB_Tv2SPveIg2ObvJF6t4TJe4BHHW4tRJkChufpDMH4sbMVZ44e3ks/s1600/20140930_123939.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6a40Y3AgeZBkhCDb51k5wF8ak45XBf8AfD6kdril164Z6fPKmpT_E3Wr5_maqHZb9-cTnCayfsX-2pbzSKrasDSB_Tv2SPveIg2ObvJF6t4TJe4BHHW4tRJkChufpDMH4sbMVZ44e3ks/s1600/20140930_123939.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Little Lehigh Creek in Lower Macungie Township, PA.<br />A designated HQ stream (photo by author).</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So,
Rep. Hahn, please do not frame this bill as a bogus landowners rights
battle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This bill seems like nothing
more than an attempt to ingratiate yourself with developers seeking to squeeze
a few more units into projects bordering environmentally sensitive
streams.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Too bad those developers cannot
comprehend that protecting adjacent streams has a positive effect on the value
of their finished project.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Who wouldn’t
want to live next to a pristine and well-protected stream?<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #0e0f14; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Please
email your state senator today and urge them to vote against HB1565 when it
comes to a vote. There is not much time left to ensure our headwater streams
remain protected with proper riparian buffers.</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If you don’t know
who your PA state senator is, you can look them up here (<a href="http://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/legis/home/findyourlegislator/index.cfm">http://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/legis/home/findyourlegislator/index.cfm</a>)
and find their email address. Please do it this weekend.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Scott Alderferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17545537207383745803noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3904068358841224370.post-53455672165824107592014-10-02T15:37:00.001-04:002014-10-02T15:37:16.763-04:00Winning With Open Space Preservation<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What do we mean
by open space preservation? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s a
question that some residents here in Lower Macungie Township, where I live, are
starting to ask.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Lower Macungie has the
dubious distinction of having been the fastest growing municipality in
Pennsylvania for the decade from 2000 to 2010. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In that decade, Lower Macungie's 22 square
miles gained 11,413 new residents, a 59% increase from 2000. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We now have about 31,000 residents.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Many current
residents, whether they have lived here 5 years or 45 years, are lamenting the
loss of so much of the farmland that had originally attracted them to this once
rural area. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So naturally, there has been
talk of trying to get a coherent open space preservation policy established in
Lower Macungie for quite some time. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But
when locals say Lower Macungie needs to preserve open space, what exactly does
that mean?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To answer that
question, I first have to explain what has happened to the local farm land over
the past several decades. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The problem
with much of Lower Macungie's farmland is that, several decades ago, a significant
portion of it was zoned to allow subdivision into residential lots with a
minimum size of either 12,000 or 18,000 square feet. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That zoning decision effectively opened the
door for developers to begin offering farmers a sizable nest egg for their retirement
in exchange for purchasing their farms.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So if we want to
preserve open space, are we talking about competing with developers to buy
these local farms? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not necessarily. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Buying land outright is not really an
efficient way for a municipality to preserve open space. Municipalities
don't usually want to be in the farming business or the real estate management
business. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Instead, the most
straightforward way to preserve open space is to find a buyer for the land
owner's development rights. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It could be
the township. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It could be the county. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or it could be a non-profit land trust
organization. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Generally, the cost of the
development rights is simply the difference between how much a developer would
pay for that farm and how much another farmer would pay to buy the land to
continue farming it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And it could be a
significant windfall for a self-employed farmer who needs to supplement meager
retirement savings.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Buying development
rights from land owners is a win-win. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
farmer wins because he or she gets paid for selling a valuable but intangible portion
of their farm.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They can continue to farm
their land and use it as they please. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They
may also pass it down to their children to continue the farming tradition. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Severing the development rights simply makes the
farm unmarketable to a developer. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So the
rest of the community wins, because one less farm will be lost to development
and all of the traffic, stormwater runoff and school crowding associated with
it.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In a later post, I'll explain how to fund purchase of development rights.</span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdBNVfsI8yaY6YiOvwgCgDFSa-qXs5E07gAPGASBhUe0msITjUhi6bvbi-6QZTpUxptkjWPU7TFeoELObZyr1bHl2L04rH6tglLyX5lYlX__Ze25TW-TmfSHWcrG2I5cD5lNvuzfSmg20/s1600/Lichty1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdBNVfsI8yaY6YiOvwgCgDFSa-qXs5E07gAPGASBhUe0msITjUhi6bvbi-6QZTpUxptkjWPU7TFeoELObZyr1bHl2L04rH6tglLyX5lYlX__Ze25TW-TmfSHWcrG2I5cD5lNvuzfSmg20/s1600/Lichty1.jpg" height="180" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Instead of rows of corn, picture rows of several hundred houses at this farm located in the heart of Lower Macungie. Over 300 new houses could be built on this 130-acre farm, bringing gridlock to one of the main north-south arteries in the township. (photo by author)</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
Scott Alderferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17545537207383745803noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3904068358841224370.post-78148823192077198732014-08-06T09:25:00.001-04:002014-08-06T09:25:43.025-04:00PA Regulators Falling Short on their Duty to Protect the Public from Fracking Risks<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hydraulic fracturing, commonly known as fracking, is a
process that blasts bedrock to create fractures for natural gas to escape form
the bedrock. Fracking is used in unconventional wells that are extended
horizontally from an initial vertical borehole. The process is used in
Pennsylvania to extract natural gas from the Marcellus Shale Formation, which
is encountered as depths as great as 8,000 to 10,000 feet below ground in the
northern and western parts of the state.</span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjObLU2dxHOenb_WDFcKf2eA6SGdVX3CmoKtfxAXwApRnApMl7GWFvpc7cVoM-6pc3t8dIkx8tkG0rZ0-gqES6FjYP0LVA_64DmC2HNWTF7UFOj2JmOIzEv3PF27jJRN-smYCaaZnreG7M/s1600/HorizontalWellBoreSchematic.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjObLU2dxHOenb_WDFcKf2eA6SGdVX3CmoKtfxAXwApRnApMl7GWFvpc7cVoM-6pc3t8dIkx8tkG0rZ0-gqES6FjYP0LVA_64DmC2HNWTF7UFOj2JmOIzEv3PF27jJRN-smYCaaZnreG7M/s1600/HorizontalWellBoreSchematic.png" height="299" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Hydraulic fracturing of an unconventional gas well.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">( http://www.nt.gov.au/d/Minerals_Energy/?header=How%20do%20we%20access%20Unconventional%20Gas)</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">
</span></td></tr>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I am not anti-fracking. As a geologist, I understand how fracking
is supposed to work, and I think it’s a viable means of extracting natural gas
from deep formations in which conventional drilling is not practicable. But I
also think that Pennsylvania has done a horrendous job of overseeing how the energy
companies operating in PA drill for natural gas and manage their drilling
wastes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette does a great job covering
Marcellus Shale gas drilling issues in PA, including reporting on negative
environmental aspects of bringing this natural resource to market. Last week
the <a href="http://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/2014/07/28/DEP-must-do-better-The-public-is-left-with-too-many-questions-on-oil-and-gas-drilling/stories/201407240119">Post-Gazette
ran a great editorial piece</a> that cited data they obtained from the Pennsylvania
Department of Environmental Protection (PADEP) about compromised water supplies
related to oil and gas operations. The editorial also criticized PADEP for
issues with public access to information related to water supplies contaminated
by oil or gas drilling activities. Many of the chemicals used in the fracking
process are claimed by drillers to be trade secrets. And PADEP will not release
information about those chemicals. So the public and their advocates have no
opportunity to evaluate the risks they may be facing from fracking fluid
contamination.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When the reports about methane in residential water wells near
Marcellus gas wells in northern PA first started hitting the media five or
six years ago, the red flags should have been clear to anyone familiar with
drilling. The drillers were swearing that there was no way methane from
their target formation at 8,000 feet below ground could have contaminated the
shallow aquifer only 100 to 150 feet bellow ground where most domestic wells
are built. And, if the wells were constructed properly, that should be true. But
the drilling boom came upon PADEP too quickly. The DEP had neither the field
inspectors nor the funding to hire enough field inspectors to be able to ensure
that gas wells were being constructed properly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Steel casing is supposed to be cemented into the surrounding bedrock to
a depth far below the drinking water aquifer. The cement slurry, a mixture of
cement and bentonite clay, effectively seals the annular space around the
outside of the steel casing to prevent any drilling fluids or gas from leaking
around the casing and getting into the aquifer. And a good annular seal also
prevents surface runoff water from seeping down along the outside of the casing
and tainting the underlying drinking water aquifer. That is assuming the wells
are being properly sealed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In my job, I have overseen drillers installing hundreds of groundwater
monitoring wells or remediation wells designed to delineate or treat petroleum,
solvents or metals contamination in groundwater. There have been many times I
have given the driller my construction specifications and, when they thought I
wasn’t looking, caught them cutting corners. Most often the corner getting cut involved
how they were grouting the well materials in the borehole. And that's exactly
what I think happened in the majority of instances in which methane was documented in domestic wells in close proximity to an unconventional gas well.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If the cement used to seal the steel casing into the
borehole is mixed with too much water, the cement will shrink as it cures and
will pull away from the borehole walls. If not enough bentonite is mixed with
the concrete, if it is not mixed uniformly or if it is pumped too quickly down
the borehole, there may be pockets of concrete that do not seal completely
to the borehole walls. These are the conditions that PADEP inspectors should have been on hand to look for during well drilling. Presumably, at this point in
the drilling boom, something as basic as proper well grouting has been rectified
between drillers and PADEP.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkXwTEsuuq30C-rEETace0XbTEr3A_3j0mZppqpK1Iwy9boTPoMEI-3DDjR2aYtCjTiaAgOe5qOy41o9ZE0lGEXds6E4B_IiS4LI_4j-er20rFO2KrF5OdS0sRroc1yAFnbo8I56B6c60/s1600/observer-reporter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkXwTEsuuq30C-rEETace0XbTEr3A_3j0mZppqpK1Iwy9boTPoMEI-3DDjR2aYtCjTiaAgOe5qOy41o9ZE0lGEXds6E4B_IiS4LI_4j-er20rFO2KrF5OdS0sRroc1yAFnbo8I56B6c60/s1600/observer-reporter.jpg" height="207" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Fracking fluid impoundment in western PA.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(photo credit: Observer-Reporter.com)</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span></td></tr>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Assuming that gas wells are now being properly constructed,
spills of drilling fluid are probably the biggest on-going concern for public
health. Spills of drilling fluids are a
largely preventable threat to groundwater and surface water resources. <a href="http://www.post-gazette.com/news/state/2014/08/03/Drillers-did-not-report-half-of-spills-that-led-to-fines/stories/201408020142#ixzz39Mpu5eRS">A
different Post-Gazette editorial published earlier this week</a> cited the
disturbing frequency of drilling companies failing to detect or report spills
on their drilling sites. Half of the drilling fluid spills for which PADEP
fined drillers through 2012 were not reported to PADEP by drillers as required
by law. Instead, they were reported by drilling site land owners or neighboring
property owners or observed by PADEP inspectors or other officials.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">PADEP needs to be better funded to better police Marcellus
drilling sites so that drillers will be less likely to carelessly allow
preventable spills to happen and will be more diligent in policing their sites to promptly discover and act on truly accidental spills. PA’s groundwater and
surface water resources depend on it.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
Scott Alderferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17545537207383745803noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3904068358841224370.post-11652314808478796942014-08-02T20:17:00.001-04:002014-08-02T20:17:14.668-04:00Growing Smart Controls Long-Term Costs for Communities<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I read this <a href="http://time.com/3031079/suburbs-will-die-sprawl/">great article in Time</a>
earlier this week. It’s a brief primer for anyone who wants to hear about how so
much of today’s sprawling suburban and commercial development that is touted as
economic growth has the opposite effect in the long run. Chuck Marohn is a
former municipal planner turned evangelist for <a href="http://www.smartgrowthamerica.org/what-is-smart-growth">Smart Growth</a>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I heard Chuck Marohn speak about a year and a half ago, and he
converted me. The bottom line of Smart Growth is that communities must be sustainable,
and new development far removed from existing population and infrastructure is
typically not sustainable. All municipal officials should be doing long-term
cost/benefit analyses for any new development projects they are considering
approving, and private development should not be subsidized by public funds
unless there is sufficient long-term pubic benefit.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Unchecked development in the present, sprawling into former farm fields, is not the path to future
long-term prosperity. Developers who receive subsidies from state or local
governments – whether it’s to extend a sewer line or road widening and traffic
signalization – are typically no longer in town to share maintenance costs
after the project is built out and sold. They are not around to share in the
replacement costs of that new public infrastructure when it’s time to replace the
first-generation structures. And because the long-term costs were not
considered up front, the tax payers must pay perpetually for those
project-specific improvements. It's amazing that more fiscal conservatives have
not figured out that sprawl is fiscally unsustainability.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Where I live, in Lower Macungie Township, PA, our Planning
Commission and former Board of Supervisors seemingly used to give developers almost
anything they asked. Utility concessions, road improvements and stormwater
infrastructure were all fair game. Accepting dedications of streets in new
residential developments or industrial parks is nothing unusual in most areas,
even though the municipality then becomes liable for all repairs, repaving and
snow removal. And there is a public safety argument there, because emergency
services vehicles need to reliably be able to get to emergencies in these
developments.</span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7e3q2nPo38KREs557l12cBqwW0T-IPAJwZEW-rtFeaMwUMPJVR75fS_DK_G1SE1Y-gPjN3JGJeEOFJvtw969Os8E4Pw3U4t7wzcYymZWsdku9mC9_gL8E2ErnAp7OHL-f7uOon4D-lr8/s1600/formerbasin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7e3q2nPo38KREs557l12cBqwW0T-IPAJwZEW-rtFeaMwUMPJVR75fS_DK_G1SE1Y-gPjN3JGJeEOFJvtw969Os8E4Pw3U4t7wzcYymZWsdku9mC9_gL8E2ErnAp7OHL-f7uOon4D-lr8/s1600/formerbasin.jpg" height="238" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Stormwater basin in Lower Macungie Townshp, PA</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><div style="text-align: left;">
(photo by Lower Macungie Township)</div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Stormwater management is one thing that local governments certainly should not be subsidizing for developers. Until recently, our municipal
government was accepting ownership and liability for stormwater infrastructure
from developers. In fact, as of last Fall, out of 88 stormwater basins on
record in the township, Lower Macungie township was fully responsible for 23
stormwater basins, with another 23 basins previously agreed to be dedicated to
the township upon completion of the projects and transfer of the National
Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permits from the respective
developers. So the Lower Macungie taxpayers are on the hook to fund the
perpetual maintenance on these stormwater facilities.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnjnSYhPn6Zudv8gFuJQMrd1Fi67luT8sdG7G0raF4SsuG48y-Y6Wyi3KHysbXqQFurr5EK-3RPD7dsDA-advBM2yFAjMTFlYeRyRSWlybcYvNW42d41kNct4dIxKrVew-4wnPi6THHpc/s1600/Farmington.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnjnSYhPn6Zudv8gFuJQMrd1Fi67luT8sdG7G0raF4SsuG48y-Y6Wyi3KHysbXqQFurr5EK-3RPD7dsDA-advBM2yFAjMTFlYeRyRSWlybcYvNW42d41kNct4dIxKrVew-4wnPi6THHpc/s1600/Farmington.jpg" height="224" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Four Seasons Development in Lower Macungie.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Development </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">is not connected to surrounding</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">neighborhoods, but </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">stormwater </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">basins are</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">maintained by homeowners </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">association.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(photo by Newton Engineering)</span></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Our current Board of Commissioners has gone on record as
saying that, going forward, they will no longer accept new stormwater
facilities from developers. That's great, because it means that any new residential, commercial or
industrial developments must maintain their own stormwater retention basins.
That’s significant for new residential developments, because it means that they
will have to form a homeowners association to manage their stormwater facilities
and associated liabilities. But municipalities cannot afford to continue to
absorb these long-term costs from the developers of subdivisions and the
subsequent owners of the resulting parcels.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; text-align: left;">Emmaus, PA. A classic community with mixed-use </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; text-align: left;">areas and</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; text-align: left;">a vibrant,</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; text-align: left;">walkable downtown district. (photo credit:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; text-align: left;">http://fltquest.zenfolio.com/img/s2/v4/p956485518-3.jpg)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So while my community’s new projects may remain subject to
an illogical, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoning_in_the_United_States#Euclidean">Euclidean
zoning</a> map and might not be walkable or connected with the existing
community in a Smart Growth kind of way, we can demand that new development
must pass a cost/benefit analysis to ensure that the taxpayers will not be
saddled with long-term costs unique to the new project. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Scott Alderferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17545537207383745803noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3904068358841224370.post-76143630623757849312014-07-14T07:43:00.001-04:002016-03-10T19:12:19.106-05:00In Praise of Volunteers<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-nNi8jhcPgIxgfrxlIpUDs5geA3JBPnaJQ8GITLoAMuHjvJUvJTgFDozQO-XHgfuE-5NJOO-tqMXQ2CUGMHo8QhM_OLMKnzDTyZIB30oZlBT7WkmpsQMLJkrt3ncAxcE80kwMy6HxojE/s1600/20140710_193933.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-nNi8jhcPgIxgfrxlIpUDs5geA3JBPnaJQ8GITLoAMuHjvJUvJTgFDozQO-XHgfuE-5NJOO-tqMXQ2CUGMHo8QhM_OLMKnzDTyZIB30oZlBT7WkmpsQMLJkrt3ncAxcE80kwMy6HxojE/s1600/20140710_193933.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Penns Meadow stormwater basin upland area, showing</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">trees amidst a sea of wild flowers (photo by author).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I’ve written previously about the naturalized stormwater
basin (Penns Meadow) in my township that our Environmental Advisory Council
(EAC) has adopted. The basin was a roughly 3.5-acre, shortly-mowed lawn until
our county conservation district was awarded a grant in 2010 to retrofit it with three different types of stormwater best management practices featuring
appropriate native vegetation. I had the opportunity to work with a small group
of great volunteers at Penns Meadow last week to tackle a project, tree
protection, that has been on the EAC’s to-do list for a couple of years.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">First, let me clarify the role that our township EAC is
supposed to have. The EAC was established by ordinance in 2009 by the Board of
Commissioners at that time with the stated purpose to: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">“advise local governmental agencies including, but
not limited to: the Board of Commissioners, the Planning Commission, and the
Parks and Recreation Board, on matters dealing with the protection, conservation,
management, promotion, acquisition, and use of natural resources including air,
land, water, and open space resources located within or affecting Lower Macungie
Township.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And these stated duties are the types of things we discuss
at our monthly meetings. However, in a municipality of 22 square miles in which
31,000 residents are connected by over 100 miles of township roads, there are
some things of interest to the EAC that don’t fall into standard municipal
services categories. For example, following up on proper maintenance of the Penns
Meadow stormwater basin area has never really been officially delegated to any particular
department or staff members.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuYx7tMzeLicZMqWWFP8SRqgOY8BpnKQw5bOUQ8VOG7-AqaJ6nTTYvtWux_motx9hpk4lSFVI_gt70G84VlLZMQtcahDAUE8w4NWQ2lK-ySSHg5_UVYc9IwMrNZErYPrzcZBT-ZJfOHYY/s1600/20140710_193904.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuYx7tMzeLicZMqWWFP8SRqgOY8BpnKQw5bOUQ8VOG7-AqaJ6nTTYvtWux_motx9hpk4lSFVI_gt70G84VlLZMQtcahDAUE8w4NWQ2lK-ySSHg5_UVYc9IwMrNZErYPrzcZBT-ZJfOHYY/s1600/20140710_193904.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Although the EAC was never intended to be a hands-on group
of volunteers, we make an effort to coordinate volunteer projects once or twice
a year for the good of the township’s natural resources. Many of these projects
have involved Penns Meadow, simply because the retrofit was a great project and
we want to ensure that the original efforts are properly maintained. And such
was last week’s project at Penns Meadow, with the volunteer labor supplied by a
group of Master Watershed Stewards.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4R3jKpGup60afw65TSir-JkCvQIjZlsnAMlJKAY7PsBuu2E0a1n0_z4XMYwWcm-MhP2RaM9cC117k4-rgHKGNqXxtaWLUGHvMhKXHJbQ43RV_tvXzyhT5HQEvKp353pIbIdZHXuuaI0A/s1600/20140710_193616.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4R3jKpGup60afw65TSir-JkCvQIjZlsnAMlJKAY7PsBuu2E0a1n0_z4XMYwWcm-MhP2RaM9cC117k4-rgHKGNqXxtaWLUGHvMhKXHJbQ43RV_tvXzyhT5HQEvKp353pIbIdZHXuuaI0A/s1600/20140710_193616.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Tree tube installed on a tree to prevent</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">rodent damage to bark (photo by author).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Our local <a href="http://extension.psu.edu/natural-resources/water/watershed-education/watershed-stewards">Master Watershed Stewards Program</a> is run by the Penn State Extension service. It
currently operates in only three of PA’s 67 counties, however. Similar watershed
steward programs are run by state land grant colleges and universities in a few
other states (Arizona, New York and Ohio). Several other states have <a href="http://www.usawaterquality.org/volunteer/VolunteerMonPrograms/MasterNaturalistPrograms.html">Master Naturalist programs</a> that are probably comparable. Our Pennsylvania Master
Watershed Stewards complete 40 hours of training on a wide range of topics such
as:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the hydrologic cycle, groundwater,
water chemistry, water test interpretation, stream ecology, wetlands, forestry,
dam removal, riparian buffers, soils, geology, invasive plants, stormwater and
flooding. Following training, 50 hours of volunteer work are required to
complete the program and earn the title. In successive years, 20 hours of
volunteer work and 10 hours of continuing education are required. It’s only in
its second year here, but it looks like it’s turning into a great program. And
for an EAC chair who is often looking for volunteers to help with the Penns
Meadow stormwater basin site, I’m happy to have some new volunteers to include so
that I don’t burn out the boy scouts who usually help us with projects each year.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFA6msYhIFMdD5ditDZj7UK7b0P6lQyhyphenhyphengfJB7QgmOH_WE6_bGQVQLVPGwWNiUhnw0Wb5gFhz1_HoEc_4v5FX5TmHZRnHVmhWqkM0cjGLtn_OHED1lu05hc0fDVz18biorI-z8MSRvirE/s1600/20140710_193717.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFA6msYhIFMdD5ditDZj7UK7b0P6lQyhyphenhyphengfJB7QgmOH_WE6_bGQVQLVPGwWNiUhnw0Wb5gFhz1_HoEc_4v5FX5TmHZRnHVmhWqkM0cjGLtn_OHED1lu05hc0fDVz18biorI-z8MSRvirE/s1600/20140710_193717.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Mulch from township's yard waste composting<br />operation and tree with a protective tube in<br />background (photo by author).</span></td></tr>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Last week’s project with our Watershed Stewards involved
installing tree protection tubes around the trunks of 140 trees and spreading
some mulch at the base of those trees. The tree tubes will serve two purposes. First,
they will improve the visibility of some of the smaller trees among tall, dead,
herbaceous vegetation in the winter when the area gets its annual mowing. We’ve
had mishaps with trees getting run over once before, because the EAC did not
have the trees marked out clearly enough. The second, and more critical, need
for the tree tubes is to prevent rabbits and other smaller rodents from eating
the bark around the trunks over the winter. While helping to install some of
the tubes last week, I noticed at least one tree that had a ring of bark gnawed
off around the base of it. Bark damage that encircles a tree like that is
called girdling. If that girdling continues all the way through the bark into
the underlying cambium layer, a tree does not stand much chance of surviving.
Hopefully, with the new tree tubes in place, the girdled tree I saw can recover, and girdling of other trees will be prevented.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Thanks to the Lower Macungie Public Works Department for delivering about 10 cubic yards of mulch to
the site – enough for all 140 trees receiving tubes. The Watershed Stewards distributed the mulch to each of the trees with either wheel barrow or by lugging a couple of five gallon buckets. Thanks to Julie, Shannon, Jien and
Crystal for your sweat equity in Penns Meadow. </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It was a hot evening, but it was nice to see the wildflowers in bloom. They look a heck of a lot better than a scorched lawn at this time of year.</span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyMZqEaqEjDT6G4wSRsVrC-Qu8cRSm9FsdHEiAuDOLp1E-uQo911Kx6fT4pGRsTBkemgxCOwGKcoKAVtvgUrN6qsccf0ZG3nZ3cnwt-hQ9yvhjV09Hi9Iy1kl7VAGrRGLprDq4mgI8LJE/s1600/20140710_193034.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyMZqEaqEjDT6G4wSRsVrC-Qu8cRSm9FsdHEiAuDOLp1E-uQo911Kx6fT4pGRsTBkemgxCOwGKcoKAVtvgUrN6qsccf0ZG3nZ3cnwt-hQ9yvhjV09Hi9Iy1kl7VAGrRGLprDq4mgI8LJE/s1600/20140710_193034.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Purple cone flowers (foreground) and wild bergamot (background) in bloom (photo by author).</span></td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8OyDXm5sp_cLZ6VVmxV8uhOvyd8ug894_X-XEiOmPFkwFEPzMZXh4qA60ckY5b89iw_klx-vVdoRtauhZiLSDg7wPFd-04tljKi-fk5coIeOrbecNDt6whyTUurmeuN8ombJWkQZCJdU/s1600/20140710_193631.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8OyDXm5sp_cLZ6VVmxV8uhOvyd8ug894_X-XEiOmPFkwFEPzMZXh4qA60ckY5b89iw_klx-vVdoRtauhZiLSDg7wPFd-04tljKi-fk5coIeOrbecNDt6whyTUurmeuN8ombJWkQZCJdU/s1600/20140710_193631.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Black-eyed susan (yellow) and swamp milkweed (tall with purplish flowers) in bloom (photo by author).</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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Scott Alderferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17545537207383745803noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3904068358841224370.post-90634705583694177862014-07-04T23:46:00.001-04:002014-07-04T23:46:15.202-04:00Why It's Climate Change and Not Global Warming and Why It Matters<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Let me start this post by saying up front that, as a
scientist, I believe that human activities over the past 200 years have
resulted in a global warming trend that has been more rapid than any that we’ve
seen in the paleoclimatological data to date. And I believe this current warming
trend is setting us up for changes in our global climate that will continue way
beyond our own lifetimes and will cause major disruptions in the lives of millions
of people.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I try to avoid arguments on Facebook with climate change
skeptics. Although sometimes I try to politely point out when their comment
makes an incorrect assumption or draws an unsupported conclusion about climate
science. And then someone else will often chime in trying to hijack science to
support their view that climate change is a hoax or a conspiracy by ________
(fill in the blank with whichever liberal the person dislikes the most). I
experienced a Facebook exchange just like this yesterday. Most of the time it’s
people confusing weather with climate. Weather is what we experience day to day
and differs from town to town. When we talk about climate, it’s on a global
scale and trending over one year or thousands of years. Climate is driven by complex
interactions of ocean currents and ocean temperatures with ambient air,
resulting in the range of temperatures and range of precipitation experienced
of over a given span of time at any given point around the world. That’s why I
prefer to call it Climate Change. If I say global warming, someone will always
point out that we just had one of the harshest winters in southeastern PA since
the late 1970s.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Facebook exchange started when one of my conservative
friends posted a link to a climate-denier’s blog that discussed Antarctic sea
ice levels increasing despite a warming global climate. Of course both the
blogger and my friend took this sea ice observation as proof that global
warming is a sham. So I took his bait and responded with the following analogy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Trying to understand climate change is like watching a
5-hour long movie frame by frame. A human lifetime would equate to seeing one
or two frames of that 5-hour movie. For a 21<sup>st</sup> century human to say
that they do not see the climate changing is like viewing one or two
frames of the movie and saying you don’t see a movie. To get an idea of what
the movie is about, you’ve got to rewind through at least the previous hour. And that’s the case with climate change – you’ve got to look back
at previous cycles of natural climate change to make sense of the rate of temperature change seen
over the past 200 years since the start of intensively burning fossil fuels.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Then someone else tried to refute me by posting a graph
showing ambient temperatures going back 10,000 years that were calculated from
ice cores collected in Greenland. The graph came from an academic paper and was
supposed to prove that it’s not as warm now as it has been for the past 10,000
years. Unfortunately, that individual was cherry picking data that was
collected for an entirely different purpose than solving the global warming
debate.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgX6lF6ccbNvpN0Lu1hZKYPYUTEh82NiJ8iCmH8NaJLPdNgBfbOuDt4be67aTv8OihqY3oLqIj7_ttDnp4T2ONFIaRabeaEjbDKifh9aUkb8EsalODf6QV_rBatLdojOe0xHoH6aCpvRSc/s1600/Alley+Graph.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgX6lF6ccbNvpN0Lu1hZKYPYUTEh82NiJ8iCmH8NaJLPdNgBfbOuDt4be67aTv8OihqY3oLqIj7_ttDnp4T2ONFIaRabeaEjbDKifh9aUkb8EsalODf6QV_rBatLdojOe0xHoH6aCpvRSc/s1600/Alley+Graph.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The graph in question was from a paper by Dr. Richard Alley,
a widely respected glaciologist from Penn State. I had the opportunity to hear
him lecture once when I was in grad school at Lehigh University, because he was
a frequent collaborator with one of my professors. As esteemed as Alley is as a
glaciologist, he would not claim to be a climatologist. So I looked up the
abstract for the paper that this graph comes from, because I was curious about
its context.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The title of the paper is, "<a href="http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/alley2000/alley2000.html">The Younger
Dryas cold interval as viewed from central Greenland</a>." The Younger
Dryas cold interval was a period from approximately 12,800 to 11,500 years ago
in which the earth experienced a temporary period of cold, dry conditions. This
1300-year interval was at the tail end of the overall warming trend associated
with the end of the most recent glacial period, which officially ended about
10,500 years ago. Alley would likely study the Younger Dryas to determine its
effects on Greenland’s glaciers at that time. At the glacial maximum for the
most recent glacial period (about 22,000 years ago), the glaciers had advanced
about as far as Blue Mountain in eastern PA, Long Island, NY, and across many
of the northernmost states in the Midwest. So the Younger Dryas period was a
1,300-year anomaly in the final 11,500 years of the most recent glacial period.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So in the big picture, yes, we are simply somewhere in the
middle of one of several interglacial periods in the earth's 4.6 billion year
history. But there is a preponderance of evidence indicating that carbon
loading into the atmosphere appears to have accelerated the natural warming
trend that we probably were already in. Indisputable proof doesn’t happen often
in science, so we have to rely on the general conclusions of the overwhelming
majority of climate scientists. Their climate models all vary to some extent,
but most of them acknowledge the effect of man-made carbon tweaking the global
climate and accelerating the rate of warming of our oceans and atmosphere.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The reason for concern is that the temperature increases we
are seeing in our global climate over the past 200 years have been at a more
rapid rate than the warming period from 22,000 to 10,500 years that ended the
most recent glacial period. There is <a href="http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/gornitz_09/">evidence</a> to
suggest that during the previous interglacial period, around 125,000 years ago,
sea levels were 3-4 m higher than they are presently. So if our present
interglacial period ultimately gets as warm as the one that peaked 125,000
years ago, we could be looking at sea levels rising 10-12 feet. Even a couple
of feet over the next 100-200 years is going to displace millions of people.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And possibly an even more immediate concern is feeding the
earth's 7 billion people when weather patterns shift and droughts become more
prevalent in regions currently associated with agriculture. The eastern U.S.
might get wetter as a result, but we've built on or paved much of our great
agricultural soil in the east over the past 50 years. The threat to agriculture
is one reason that the U.S. Department of Defense considers climate change a
national security threat.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Of course, the explanation above, when offered on Facebook,
was met with the usual accusations of academic dishonesty by the 95% of climate
scientists who will say anything just to get more funding to perpetuate the
hoax that the “Administration” wants people to believe. But at least our
military is acknowledging the worst case scenario of a climate warming more
rapidly than it appears to have over the past couple hundred thousand years. So
I guess we need to modify that old adage that the two things to never discuss
at a cocktail party are politics and religion. Regretfully, it seems that we
need to add science to that list of taboo topics.</span></div>
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Scott Alderferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17545537207383745803noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3904068358841224370.post-33968756591503211592014-06-15T22:55:00.001-04:002014-06-15T22:55:07.717-04:00The Ethical Side of EPA's Proposed Clean Air Regs<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNF4kht-PoP8bBS4IVSFBIgG-gEfoGUWRODFRUkspXDmvweHl2p07bUp6SJH3CF250af72YZ9agpXQkAvjW2OKGnKlo2NovotN0Dcb0teVgaNwE3x8NG3Q2P_HgpnMebz1hdV889K51cY/s1600/20130920_powerplantPA.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNF4kht-PoP8bBS4IVSFBIgG-gEfoGUWRODFRUkspXDmvweHl2p07bUp6SJH3CF250af72YZ9agpXQkAvjW2OKGnKlo2NovotN0Dcb0teVgaNwE3x8NG3Q2P_HgpnMebz1hdV889K51cY/s1600/20130920_powerplantPA.jpg" height="285" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Coal-fired
power plant in Conemaugh, PA (Photo by Stefan <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Schlöhmer
on ens-newswire.com)</span><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 13pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I read a <a href="http://www.pennlive.com/opinion/2014/06/coal_isnt_dying_-_it_just_cant.html#incart_river">great
op-ed piece</a><span style="color: #1a1a1a;"> last week
that blows away the smokescreen spewed by detractors of the EPA’s newly
proposed clean air regulations. The op-ed, by Christina Simeone of the
Harrisburg-based advocacy group PennFuture, explained how market forces, rather
than a mythical war on coal, are chipping away at the demand for coal.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.8pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That same day I also read an <a href="http://thetimes-tribune.com/opinion/use-new-rule-to-advantage-1.1699995">editorial in Scranton’s Times-Tribune</a> that laid out much
the same argument as Simeone’s op-ed. I entirely agree that there are valid
economic reasons that we should not kid our selves into believing that that a
liberal cabal is plotting to eradicate the coal industry.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.8pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But I’m also thinking about the human aspect of why we
have to seriously wean our country from reliance on coal. Writing this post on
Father’s Day, I’m thinking of the strong sense of social justice that my father
impressed upon me. Because the reality of coal-fired power plants is that, other
than the newest plants, they spew harmful
contaminants into the air we all breathe. And in many cases, the people who
live closest downwind to the older coal-fired plants have higher rates of
respiratory illnesses than people in upwind towns. The people who are most
likely to live in the downwind fallout zone of those older plants
typically live there because they cannot afford to live elsewhere. They may be economically
disadvantaged because of their race, their education, or simply because they
are the n<sup>th</sup> generation of their family living and working in that
town. Regardless of their situation or background, they have a right to breathe
clean air, just like any other American has the right.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Article 1, Section 27 of the Pennsylvania Constitution,
the environmental rights amendment, states:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"The
people have a right to clean air, pure water, and to the preservation of the
natural, scenic, historic, and esthetic values of the environment.
Pennsylvania's public natural resources are the common property of all of the
people, including generations yet to come. As trustee of these resources, the
Commonwealth shall conserve and maintain them for the benefit of all the
people."<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.8pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">EPA’s newly proposed clean air regulations, therefore, are
entirely consistent with the right to breathe clean air that was guaranteed by
the passage of PA’s environmental rights amendment in 1971. The argument that clean
air regulations are killing PA’s coal industry has been debunked. Rather, if the
newly proposed federal regulations are ratified, they will help to ensure the health of tens of thousands
of Pennsylvanians, including coal industry workers and residents of coal mining
towns.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I imagine some libertarians might argue that if the
demand for coal is weakening because cleaner energy technologies are actually cheaper then the free market should be allowed to make adjustments without regulatory intervention. But surely there will be cheapskate coal plant operators
intent on running their plant into the ground to squeeze out every last nickel from
of their investment, regardless of how many of its neighbors it sickens or
kills. The free market relies on rational decisions. But deciding to continue
to pollute without regard for the human casualties of your pollution is neither
a rational choice nor an ethical choice.<span style="font-size: 13pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUFUm_bEFUfoTPA75ZvLVl6BeArQkGvSMlQolnruvlqSxadJfCPMLJgwqn6CmPP8RCfSUXk6oLyJ2JHCfAdt8hEQZ8AIGQ7P9D73fmIHyqU08KEJdZdl0Olk4t8kFOQtk6J91WEJDxQ_I/s1600/Greenpeace.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUFUm_bEFUfoTPA75ZvLVl6BeArQkGvSMlQolnruvlqSxadJfCPMLJgwqn6CmPP8RCfSUXk6oLyJ2JHCfAdt8hEQZ8AIGQ7P9D73fmIHyqU08KEJdZdl0Olk4t8kFOQtk6J91WEJDxQ_I/s1600/Greenpeace.jpg" height="265" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Portland, PA, coal-fired generating station. In 2011, Greenpeace reported that </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">pollution from this plant was responsible for 30 deaths
annually, as well as </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">54 heart attacks, 50</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">0 asthma attacks, and scores of
hospital admissions and </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">emergency room visits.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><div style="text-align: left;">
(Photo: Les Stone, Greenpeace. <a href="http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/news-and-blogs/campaign-blog/greenpeace-airship-highlights-coal-pollution/blog/36318/" style="text-align: center;">http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/news-and-blogs/campaign-blog/greenpeace-airship-highlights-coal-pollution/blog/36318/</a>)</div>
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<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The reality is that trying to protect the coal industry is
simply enabling a behavior that is destructive to everyone living and working downwind
from any of the older coal plants. Without enactment of the EPA’s proposed
clean air regulations, we are giving the operators of those plants a free pass to
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costs of the people downwind of coal plants. I haven’t even touched on the
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Scott Alderferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17545537207383745803noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3904068358841224370.post-39892102863491441832014-03-06T20:35:00.001-05:002014-03-07T08:24:30.161-05:00Rock Snot - Coming to a River Near You<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Have you been concerned about didymo (a.k.a. "rock
snot"), the algae that seems to be slowly taking over waterways
throughout the northeast? A study from the University of New Brunswick,
recently published in the Canadian Journal of Fisheries a</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">nd Aquatic Sciences,
offers both good news and bad news about didymo’s spread.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPAiVx3XcOA_RSc0EZ3cf03X7pKlwiUAlQcreKZLfSfsnUG5lAtaJhwehyphenhyphenuIzPv1x3v-6P4I6_7sQo3DIV2OG0y4WTkcfpa_FwKvmbw3DemCDEVOkIPDV6E0JQU5BWybS8Yl0UaemKdjs/s1600/mdinvasivesp-org.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPAiVx3XcOA_RSc0EZ3cf03X7pKlwiUAlQcreKZLfSfsnUG5lAtaJhwehyphenhyphenuIzPv1x3v-6P4I6_7sQo3DIV2OG0y4WTkcfpa_FwKvmbw3DemCDEVOkIPDV6E0JQU5BWybS8Yl0UaemKdjs/s1600/mdinvasivesp-org.jpg" height="239" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: x-small; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Didymosphenia geminata</i></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> (www.mdinvasivesp.org)</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Didymo is an algae (technically, a diatom) that forms a
dense mat on the bottom of swiftly flowing freshwater rivers and streams. As its nickname implies, it looks a bit like a thick, gooey layer of mucous covering the bottom of streams and rivers. It
can smother other aquatic vegetation, reducing habitat for the aquatic
macroinvertebrates that fish feed on. In the past two decades it has been
identified in the waters of the U.S., Canada, New Zealand and Europe.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">First, the good news. Especially for anglers and boaters. Up
until now, the conventional wisdom was that didymo was an exotic invasive algae
species that was hitchhiking between watersheds on anglers’ gear, especially
felt-soled wading boots, and on boats. State environmental agencies have
launched <a href="http://www.dcnr.state.pa.us/cs/groups/public/documents/news/DCNR_20027828.pdf" target="_blank">intensive educational campaigns</a> urging anglers and boaters to <a href="http://www.dcnr.state.pa.us/cs/groups/public/documents/document/dcnr_010281.pdf" target="_blank">wash their gear and let it dry thoroughly</a> to prevent further spread of didymo.
Washing gear with a bleach solution was recommended. But according to the
University of New Brunswick study, anglers and boaters are not spreading
anything that was not already in their local ecosystems. So if anglers and
boaters are not to blame for the ooze of algae popping up in more and more
watersheds, what is going on? Sit tight for the bad news.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The didymo study looked at archival samples of lake sediment
from several regions in Canada, and they found that didymo has been in these
ecosystems for quite some time. Evidence of didymo can be found in the sediment
record back to the beginning of the 20<sup>th</sup> century and possibly even
the last decade of the 19<sup>th</sup> century. The researchers found that even
in ecosystems which did not necessarily have evidence of didymo, there were
increases in other algae species at approximately the same rate that didymo was
increasing in lakes where it was present. The researchers found that increases
in didymo and other algaes appeared to correlate with the warming climate. The
study leader, Michelle Lavery, said, "We can't make any solid claims as to
what the mechanism is that is favoring didymo, but we strongly suspect it has
to do with climate." So although anglers and boaters seem to be off the
hook for spreading didymo, the awakening of dormant didymo in bodies of water
potentially throughout North America by a gradually warming mean global
temperature would mean that we have little hope of preventing didymo from
appearing in a river near you. That’s the bad news.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So does this new view of didymo mean that anglers and
boaters don’t need to sweat about washing down their gear between destinations?
No. There are other aquatic nuisance species that are much better understood
than didymo that can hitchhike on our gear. Zebra mussels are one prominent
example. So keep scrubbing down between trips.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6w6CHJ-iUyfJ2z07Xfodo4crPgyYCkz-p5eOwI0U739M4iPdur7EGXPjEVjfaFStsaK_eFlEHhjSBV_YT3UYp1qfmhr7onPIeADd4SfYLP0zxlLtWLUFNt9SCqfzPrEJEp4P-lIJUY6s/s1600/TImDaleyPADEP_DCNR.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6w6CHJ-iUyfJ2z07Xfodo4crPgyYCkz-p5eOwI0U739M4iPdur7EGXPjEVjfaFStsaK_eFlEHhjSBV_YT3UYp1qfmhr7onPIeADd4SfYLP0zxlLtWLUFNt9SCqfzPrEJEp4P-lIJUY6s/s1600/TImDaleyPADEP_DCNR.jpg" height="320" width="193" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I think the take-away message from this study is that didymo
is still going to be a concern for those of us who rely on healthy and diverse
waterways for our outdoor recreational fix. Although the indication is that
anglers and boaters are not spreading it, this new study suggests that didymo may continue to appear throughout the waterways of the traditionally cooler
regions of North America as long as the mean global temperature continues to
inch up. I suspect that these findings mean that researchers can now focus
their future didymo studies looking for ways to minimize inevitable didymo
blooms under the assumption that it is already present but dormant in most aquatic
ecosystems. And for anglers who will have to adapt to wading through dense
patches of slippery rock snot? Maybe it’s time to invest in a wading staff.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sources:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.cbc.ca/m/touch/canada/newbrunswick/story/1.2554825">http://www.cbc.ca/m/touch/canada/newbrunswick/story/1.2554825</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/wilderness-resources/stories/whats-causing-canadas-rock-snot-infestation">http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/wilderness-resources/stories/whats-causing-canadas-rock-snot-infestation</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--StartFragment-->
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><a href="http://phys.org/news/2014-02-debunk-argument-invasive-algal-species.html"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">http://phys.org/news/2014-02-debunk-argument-invasive-algal-species.html</span></a></span><!--EndFragment-->
Scott Alderferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17545537207383745803noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3904068358841224370.post-34992779453675884312014-02-28T17:01:00.001-05:002014-02-28T17:01:15.071-05:00Climate Change From a Fish-eye View<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For those of us who acknowledge that climate change is real
and is already happening, we have the advantage of planning ahead to identify
actions that we can take on a local scale to alleviate some of the effects we
expect to see throughout the rest of our lifetimes. The U.S. Congress and
global diplomats certainly have the ability to take much bigger strides to try
to mitigate a climatic tailspin by taking action to lessen the amount of carbon
dioxide going into the atmosphere. But let’s consider something each of us can
do to mitigate some of the CO2 already in the atmosphere. Plant trees.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A shade tree is capable of absorbing and storing as much as 48
pounds of CO2 in one year. In 40 years, a tree can sequester one ton of CO2 (<a href="http://www.ncsu.edu/project/treesofstrength/treefact.htm"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">http://www.ncsu.edu/project/treesofstrength/treefact.htm</span></a>).
That’s pretty substantial, especially considering that most large shade trees
(non-ornamentals) can live decades beyond 40 years.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have a feeling that not very many climate deniers are
going to be reading this post. But just in case, for their benefit, I’ll point
out another important benefit of planting more trees in our communities. Stormwater
control. Trees can manage some of the stormwater heading for waterways in two
ways. First, they intercept rainfall before it hits the ground. The result is a
delay in the rain hitting the ground as it hangs out on the vast surface area
of the leaves and bark. Think about how often you’ve walked under a tree <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">after</i> a rain shower and had raindrops
fall from the leaves onto your head and shoulders. And more significantly, trees
consume huge amounts of stormwater after it hits the ground. A mature oak can
consume up to 40,000 gallons per year. Decreased stormwater runoff means less
severe flooding. It’s estimated that f<span style="font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">or every five percent increase in tree cover in a community, the stormwater
</span>runoff is decreased by approximately two percent (<a href="https://www.americanforests.org/"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">https://www.americanforests.org</span></a>).
A two percent decrease might not sound like much, but for municipalities trying
to meet the requirements of their EPA stormwater discharge permit (Municipal
Separate Storm Sewer System, or MS4, permit), every gallon that doesn’t go into
the local creek is a welcome reduction. Trees also absorb some of the
pollutants picked up by stormwater, keeping them from washing into waterways as
well. See, trees have something to offer everyone regardless of their climate
beliefs. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So, speaking of trees, my local Trout Unlimited chapter (the
Little Lehigh Chapter) last week was awarded a 2014 Coldwater Conservation
Implementation Grant from the <a href="http://www.coldwaterheritage.org/">Coldwater
Heritage Partnership</a>. The Coldwater Heritage Partnership’s mission is to provide
leadership, coordination, technical assistance, and funding support for the
evaluation, conservation and protection of Pennsylvania's coldwater streams.
The partners are <a href="http://www.fish.state.pa.us/">Pennsylvania Fish and
Boat Commission</a>, <a href="http://www.dcnr.state.pa.us/">Pennsylvania
Department of Conservation and Natural Resources</a>, <a href="http://www.pennsylvaniawatersheds.org/">Foundation for Pennsylvania
Watersheds</a>, and <a href="http://www.patrout.org/">Pennsylvania Council of
Trout Unlimited</a>. The chapter will use this $5,172 grant to purchase and
plant 76 appropriate shade trees throughout five selected areas along the
Little Lehigh Creek in Lower Macungie Township that have significant gaps in
the streamside riparian buffer tree canopy. As they mature, these shade trees
will help to maintain the naturally cool water temperature in the spring-fed
Little Lehigh to help prevent heat stress on the native trout during the summer
months.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<o:p><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgijNrFaWRH7BJ6iOKCJo6DLEbqjAgc2_cfeKsS0ndsY7L3Vy0xdM4R37fNWJ3nBYQ0T1RfgN4N2qEdfG8_tjZTYTD3yMeCYt_Irym9-3xbXmbNiEyEkM22WJzPgJGUmOCGRc1lvyJ8GKE/s1600/Seep2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgijNrFaWRH7BJ6iOKCJo6DLEbqjAgc2_cfeKsS0ndsY7L3Vy0xdM4R37fNWJ3nBYQ0T1RfgN4N2qEdfG8_tjZTYTD3yMeCYt_Irym9-3xbXmbNiEyEkM22WJzPgJGUmOCGRc1lvyJ8GKE/s1600/Seep2.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Little Lehigh Creek at Willow Lane in East Texas, PA. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</span></o:p></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But this grant award is a win for more than the Little
Lehigh’s native trout. As the trees grow, they will be sucking up stormwater
runoff heading for the creek along with some of the road salt, fertilizer, oil
and grease typical in suburban stormwater runoff. And, by 2054, these 76 trees
will have absorbed approximately 76 tons of CO2 from the atmosphere.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
Scott Alderferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17545537207383745803noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3904068358841224370.post-2981252080395507822014-01-31T21:30:00.004-05:002014-01-31T21:42:20.158-05:00No Party Owns the Message<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #262626; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">My
friend <a href="http://www.ronbeitler.com/">Ron Beitler</a> recently announced
on his FaceBook page that he has become a contributor to the website, </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://www.smartgrowthforconservatives.com/"><span style="color: #2d4486; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">www.smartgrowthforconservatives.com</span></a><span style="color: #2a313d;">. Some of the other contributors are heavyweight Smart
Growth advocates like Charles Marohn (<a href="http://www.strongtowns.org/">www.strongtowns.org</a>),
Jim Bacon (<a href="http://www.baconsrebellion.com/">Bacon's Rebellion</a>) and
Joe Minicozzi (<a href="http://www.planetizen.com/">Planetizen</a>). In Ron’s
words, Smart Growth for Conservatives provides center-right perspectives on
transportation and land use issues in the United States as well as analysis of
these issues from a center-right perspective with an
emphasis on fiscal conservatism and market-based solutions.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #262626;">I'm more center-left, but I fully embrace Smart Growth principles. So I
commented on his post, kiddingly asking him whether there aren’t any liberal
Smart Growth websites. Ron’s reply nailed an important distinction about Smart
Growth that would probably make the concept more tangible if more people viewed
it from this perspective.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #262626; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ron
said, “No party owns the message! Problem is we (Republicans) have to work
harder to get our base to understand that, at its core, Smart Growth is about
fiscal sustainability, and that's a message conservatives of all people should
flock to. Liberals don't own environmental issues either.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #262626; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Then
one of Ron’s FB friends commented on Ron’s statement that liberals don't own
environmental issues. Ron’s friend said, “The free market left undistorted will
value clean water, air, healthy forests, proper developments, etc., and an
asset that is valued, is an asset that is well taken care of.” A free-market
solution to the world’s problems is certainly a traditional conservative plank.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #262626; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I
don’t buy the argument for a free-market solution to environmental problems. Thirty
years ago I would have completely agreed that the free market could take care
of the environment, but I was a naïve college student then. While many small
businesses in the 21<sup>st</sup> century have been built on a model of public
responsibility, some of the biggest players pull every string available, legal
or otherwise, to maximize their profits at the expense of public health. Don’t
even get me started on Monsanto and their GMOs. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghUVuXF5iDRRiJ-vCj8lzusi3ZBHSideFW-LxxlBZQeez54kLhQZHI9tDBa0UBpB6XvFNsQYEErN_r0NZyhFDNgNEZZjk2Hypyu4ao20yLHeuE3EJ89vquKdqe_DfSDP-IewFtwCinkg8/s1600/AP_Steve+Helber.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghUVuXF5iDRRiJ-vCj8lzusi3ZBHSideFW-LxxlBZQeez54kLhQZHI9tDBa0UBpB6XvFNsQYEErN_r0NZyhFDNgNEZZjk2Hypyu4ao20yLHeuE3EJ89vquKdqe_DfSDP-IewFtwCinkg8/s1600/AP_Steve+Helber.jpg" height="223" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Freedom Industries tank farm on Elk River in Charleston. This was the</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">source of the </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">chemical spill into the Elk River on January 9,</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2014.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(photo: AP/Steve Helber)</span></div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #262626; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A
very recent example of the failure of the free market to protect the environment is the spill</span></span><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">of 4-methylcyclohexane methanol (MCHM) </span><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">in early
January into the Elk River in West Virginia. The storage tank that leaked had not been inspected by West Virginia
Department of Environmental Protection since 1991. West Virginia regulators are
claiming that there was insufficient toxicological data on MCHM to require
it to classified as a hazardous substance, which would required regular
inspections of its storage tanks. Unfortunately, this chemical leaked into the
Elk River just a mile upstream from the inlet for the public water supply for
300,000 West Virginians in nine counties. All of those who did not have a
private well were forced to rely on bottled water for two weeks. Restaurants
and hotels in Charleston reportedly were losing $1,000,000 in revenue per day
until the public water supply was declared safe to use again. All of this
disruption was the result of MCHM seemingly falling through the regulatory
cracks. The free market did not protect Charleston’s businesses or its
drinking water.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #262626; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">No
one party owns this message:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Regardless
of whether people lean to the right or the left, we need to strive for clean
air and clean water now for the sake of our children and our children's
children. As a civilized society, we have to proactively make decisions based
on what is best for future generations rather than passively letting the free
market decide whether our wellbeing will be adequately protected. That should
be an imperative that transcends political party affiliations. Whether we are deciding
if a certain chemical should be classified as a hazardous substance, thereby
having tighter standards for bulk storage, or whether we are making land use
decisions that could make open spaces more or less attractive to develop, there
are some decisions that a properly functioning government must take the lead on
for the best interests of its constituency. After the ground rules have been
laid to ensure that we all have access to safe air, water and food, the free
market then should be free to function without backroom deals or sweetheart
regulatory intervention.</span></span></div>
Scott Alderferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17545537207383745803noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3904068358841224370.post-33717670733279517622013-12-31T11:23:00.001-05:002013-12-31T11:23:42.725-05:00PA Supreme Court Rules on Act 13 Gas Drilling Law<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You may have heard that the Pennsylvania Supreme
Court recently overturned several key provisions of the state’s controversial
Act 13 law which regulates the oil and natural gas industry. Act 13 was enacted
in 2012 as a comprehensive update to the state’s oil and gas law to reflect the
current activity in the Marcellus Shale natural gas play that underlies a broad
swath of PA. Because I’ve written in the past about issues I have with the
state of natural gas drilling in the Keystone State, I thought I should comment
on the December 19 Supreme Court decision.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I don’t dispute that PA’s oil & gas laws needed to be
updated to reflect the unprecedented expansion of natural gas exploration and
extraction of Marcellus Shale natural gas over the past 6 years. While a few
elements of Act 13 were reasonable updates to the oil & gas law, some
elements simply went off the deep end. Just as our U.S. Congress often tries to
sneak provisions that favor a particular interest into otherwise good,
commonsense legislation, the PA Legislature and Governor Corbett got away with
sneaking some pro-industry garbage into Act 13. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One of my biggest problems with Act 13 was that it allowed
the gas industry to override local zoning laws. So a gas company could
conceivably have drilled in a residentially zoned area or a pipeline company
could have built a compressor station or a pipeline right next to a school or
daycare center. Many Pennsylvanians who don’t live in the Marcellus Shale
regions did not realize that this provision of Act 13 could directly affect
them if a natural gas pipeline was someday proposed to cut through their
community to transport gas from the gas fields to out-of-state destinations.
Fortunately, that zoning override has been declared unconstitutional.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Act 13 also contained a provision many physicians interpreted
as a gag rule. While physicians could request lists of chemicals used in gas
drilling, including proprietary chemicals claimed to be trade secrets, many
doctors felt Act 13’s language did not adequately protect them from legal
action by gas companies if they shared the chemical information with their
patients potentially exposed to drilling chemicals or with other physicians to
collaborate on diagnoses and treatment for patients. When a Pittsburgh physician
challenged this provision of Act 13, the Commonwealth Court earlier this year
ruled that the doctor had no standing to challenge the provision, because he
had not actually requested chemical information from drillers or been blocked
from communicating such information to his patients. In their Act 13 decision,
the Supreme Court determined that the Pittsburgh doctor has legal standing to
challenge the law and sent the case back to Commonwealth Court to reconsider. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">State Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati and House Speaker
Sam Smith, both Jefferson County Republicans, released a joint statement saying
they were “stunned” by the high court’s ruling and warning the ruling would "harshly
impact the economic welfare of Pennsylvanians." I sense that Scarnati and
Smith are really only concerned about the present day economic welfare of gas
companies and are paying no regard to the potential adverse legacy of the
current Marcellus Shale exploitation for Pennsylvanians. PA does not have a
favorable track record of energy companies sticking around to clean up their
messes after extraction of their target commodity has reached its limit of
economic viability. When this gas play is depleted in 20-30 years, will the
state be left to clean up hundreds of drilling pad sites around the state using
inadequate funds from the performance bonds the drillers had posted decades
earlier?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZZlTNufsdC3dFjJMfgXPdaUq5TSevW1dvHjbkrxpzi1hAEZFRulhayQwSgXtXG7WJlSgzqyq_X_URL8GfqrksvW83TgCLrRaZtXs1JDYYd_1-LGhGaTAle-tPMW5ZAJYkurrcl9RdGEY/s1600/Coal+Soils.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZZlTNufsdC3dFjJMfgXPdaUq5TSevW1dvHjbkrxpzi1hAEZFRulhayQwSgXtXG7WJlSgzqyq_X_URL8GfqrksvW83TgCLrRaZtXs1JDYYd_1-LGhGaTAle-tPMW5ZAJYkurrcl9RdGEY/s1600/Coal+Soils.jpg" height="133" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Photo of coal mining spoils in Pennsylvania from Abandoned Mine Reclamation Clearinghouse website (www.amrclearinghouse.org)</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Take a drive through PA’s coal regions today, and you’ll still see gaping
scars on the landscape where many coal companies, after they had mined-out the
coal deposits on their lands in the first half of the 20</span><sup style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">th</sup><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> century,
abandoned their responsibility to repair the landscape and mitigate the acid
mine drainage they had created. The state is still spending public funds to
remediate the legacy environmental pollution from irresponsible coal companies.
</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The rush to tap into and
bring to market the Marcellus Shale’s vast natural gas reserves has created the
potential for similar corporate recklessness under
the mantle of energy independence (which is BS – </span><a href="http://stream-hugger.blogspot.com/2013/07/update-on-post-about-pa-natural-gas.html" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank"><i>read what I wrote previously about exporting PA’s natural gas overseas</i></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I think one of the best results of this ruling was Chief Justice Ron
Castille calling a spade a spade: "By any responsible account the
exploitation of the Marcellus Shale Formation will produce a detrimental effect
on the environment, on the people, their children, and the future generations,
and potentially on the public purse, perhaps rivaling the environmental effects
of coal extraction."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Castille added that although the state has potentially broad regulatory
powers, those powers are limited by PA’s Environmental Rights Amendment. He was
referring to Article I, Section 27, of the PA state constitution, ratified by
PA voters in 1971:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The people
have a right to clean air, pure water, and to the preservation of the natural,
scenic, historic and esthetic values of the environment. Pennsylvania's public
natural resources are the common property of all the people, including
generations yet to come. As trustee of these resources, the Commonwealth shall
conserve and maintain them for the benefit of all the people.<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hopefully this Supreme Court ruling will frame how the
public’s environmental rights will be interpreted for future generations of
Pennsylvanians, effectively stripping the football from special interests and
making them play defense going forward. Hopefully.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
Scott Alderferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17545537207383745803noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3904068358841224370.post-47280428863304990812013-12-28T21:29:00.000-05:002013-12-28T23:00:42.586-05:00No Sidewalks: Can't Get There From Here<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">While I was writing my previous Streamhugger post about Black
Friday Parking, I began to to digress about another issue that was glaringly
evident when looking at an aerial photo of the mall where I took photos of
vastly underused parking lots. So I figured I better save that rant for a
different post. So here is that post about sidewalks, as inspired by the lack
thereof around South Mall at the south end of Allentown, PA.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> South Mall property, as currently developed, literally
straddles the municipal line between the city of Allentown, and Salisbury
Township. Originally farmland, it was first developed commercially in the early
1970s with a lone department store, and the mall grew around that anchor store
through the 70s and the 80s.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4uchXhFgwLfKWJD_FBWJBiciODTINN0o8ThuxC3e8vswiGIDCt5Z6HBRmq0k16yWZIFo6NOIpaN2dhgMGsuVlLn_HHp_MifLfXeglpYl7QPzatJD2Ah8hS3soUs1hQgNQKbbZaX7S7oU/s1600/SouthMallMain.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="290" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4uchXhFgwLfKWJD_FBWJBiciODTINN0o8ThuxC3e8vswiGIDCt5Z6HBRmq0k16yWZIFo6NOIpaN2dhgMGsuVlLn_HHp_MifLfXeglpYl7QPzatJD2Ah8hS3soUs1hQgNQKbbZaX7S7oU/s400/SouthMallMain.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">(Image from Google Maps, annotated by author)</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The residential development abutting the mall to the north,
Allentown’s Alton Park, was built mostly in the 40s and 50s. The residential
development to the west was built in the early 1990s, and the homes to the
southwest were built in 1980s. I’m sure the developers for the neighboring
homes built in the 80s and 90s used the proximity to a shopping mall as a
selling feature. So why then would the developers not have the foresight to
build sidewalks connecting to the neighboring shopping mall?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="font-size: 13px;">
<br /></div>
</div>
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<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
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</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="clear: right; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0n5b2mjZnxec7cqyZujR5C-LY04-jTsgHCbHWTTZrwRkT64t17CwfsiICkTeczqzc7lpxvpXzYsNWE0V6awc_UpIZyuFqkcJC7ZxqHW-hEXW_KkrZaTbbkNq4vn87cg-mZDxiqPhROWo/s1600/20131202_141954.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0n5b2mjZnxec7cqyZujR5C-LY04-jTsgHCbHWTTZrwRkT64t17CwfsiICkTeczqzc7lpxvpXzYsNWE0V6awc_UpIZyuFqkcJC7ZxqHW-hEXW_KkrZaTbbkNq4vn87cg-mZDxiqPhROWo/s1600/20131202_141954.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sidewalk-less residential streets in the neighborhood</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">immediately west of South Mall.</span></div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8wrKqe5TkBccpj4qp_nWc11y3J3xek3Sjq5Rz2dfzhLWQgecU0OLZivvJst8fSjsczjdFldDjP1YGb9AGnsIZAH2NlKGAIKB8vR397SkDGR9PLMTeXyHOyeiWWGxn2QPKo5tVPozy21g/s1600/20131202_140602.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8wrKqe5TkBccpj4qp_nWc11y3J3xek3Sjq5Rz2dfzhLWQgecU0OLZivvJst8fSjsczjdFldDjP1YGb9AGnsIZAH2NlKGAIKB8vR397SkDGR9PLMTeXyHOyeiWWGxn2QPKo5tVPozy21g/s1600/20131202_140602.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Dead-end street in the Alton Park neighborhood immed-</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">lately north of South Mall. There is no pedestrian cut-</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">through. Only a tree line to separate the neighborhood</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">from the mall.</span></div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The answer to that question is probably that the
municipality (Salisbury Township, in the case of the homes to the west and
southwest) did not require sidewalks along their residential streets even though they were built adjacent to a large retail destination. With no sidewalks existing in the adjacent neighborhoods, I can almost understand why no one built sidewalks to connect these residential
streets directly to the mall. Although, I do not think that omission was justified. In the case of the Alton Park homes, which lie north of and
pre-date the mall, I’d assign that blame directly to the mall owner. They chose
to plant a treeline along their common property boundary with the Alton Park
homes rather than building short walking paths connecting three dead-end
streets to the mall property. Blocking neighborhood access with dense
vegetation – that seems like a pretty unwelcoming strategy for a retail
shopping establishment.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For a municipality to not require sidewalks throughout
residential developments and to not connect residential developments to shopping
districts (or, in the case of South Mall, to an otherwise extremely conveniently
located shopping center) is both short-sighted and incompetent. Not requiring
sidewalks for whatever reason is like making the hugely inappropriate
assumption people would prefer to rely on automobiles to make even the most
basic shopping or social trips. That assumption strips residents of the ability to choose
to walk or bike instead relying on automobiles, and 21</span><sup style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">st</sup><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> century
Americans deserve to have the ability to make that choice. The only parties who are served well by development decisions that make walking and biking inconvenient are the automobile and petroleum industries.</span></div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJspAyZihdJ3XpQ16sXt8ogB397uBruc_LogBONXdrytm9wOBTDeQec5c76d0nuBV_DK7U7Y8P3W3wt3AaAQobEHnIH4G-16zdwE6lthOkQLcKnQqySDp0g6BaERp9DmSGW4vTr2NSyfM/s1600/20131202_142049.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="221" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJspAyZihdJ3XpQ16sXt8ogB397uBruc_LogBONXdrytm9wOBTDeQec5c76d0nuBV_DK7U7Y8P3W3wt3AaAQobEHnIH4G-16zdwE6lthOkQLcKnQqySDp0g6BaERp9DmSGW4vTr2NSyfM/s400/20131202_142049.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This woman is walking on the sidewalk-less street behind South Mall with </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">her back to oncoming traffic. She is either brave or naive. Considering that she was wearing ear buds and apparently listening to music on her phone, I think that calling her naive might be sugar-coating it.</span></div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
Scott Alderferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17545537207383745803noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3904068358841224370.post-87661668454344399682013-12-01T23:52:00.001-05:002013-12-01T23:54:40.373-05:00Black & Blue - Black Friday Parking Blues<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Charles Marohn at the <a href="http://www.strongtowns.org/journal/">Strong Towns blog</a> had a great
idea last week when he asked followers of that blog to Tweet photos of Black
Friday parking lots around the country with the hashtag “#BlackFridayParking.” The
Strong Towns blog then ran a live feed of the results as lots of folks from
around the country posted pics of vastly underused parking lots to help
emphasize the need for reform of minimum parking standards.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Here are some shots I took at South Mall in Allentown, PA,
around 9:30 AM on Black Friday. Not much going on there.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRweZ0tYSrH0bbzJMlQG-MjoEPB0HMqf9KqaVEAfWsBd7XIS6SPK5OH6DWMbNKnjLAmPnHVDL-L7uo79ljq4rXxRJqM7wSvQwGs5Gyi_lJQLvEQsLXd-HxtKAFEbXQKhPzDWqrvzsN9CQ/s1600/20131129_092752.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRweZ0tYSrH0bbzJMlQG-MjoEPB0HMqf9KqaVEAfWsBd7XIS6SPK5OH6DWMbNKnjLAmPnHVDL-L7uo79ljq4rXxRJqM7wSvQwGs5Gyi_lJQLvEQsLXd-HxtKAFEbXQKhPzDWqrvzsN9CQ/s1600/20131129_092752.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Front (east side) of Allentown's South Mall. Around 9:30 AM Plenty of</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">available parking.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> (photo by author).</span></div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiepq4w3wbBjNB7xgHRmFh2lZMAnP1icE2J9e3zSyKw4MghEIgEQ7p62oXA1TtjTrqwNt26yy1GayryQ2Im_n0CuoL_ZTBqasmz85qSexNrc50KvAE7FTjO515wIvAGCBdeMVJeRI7YpBw/s1600/20131129_092913.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiepq4w3wbBjNB7xgHRmFh2lZMAnP1icE2J9e3zSyKw4MghEIgEQ7p62oXA1TtjTrqwNt26yy1GayryQ2Im_n0CuoL_ZTBqasmz85qSexNrc50KvAE7FTjO515wIvAGCBdeMVJeRI7YpBw/s1600/20131129_092913.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">South end of South Mall. More w</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">asted spaces. (photo by author).</span></div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivZWceV9AMJp3qWzxoP6XQxdab_6bfaIgPerjKmyUw5tWQk0qyMwHUiRI3xCJ_kEuJNR1OnY7MQOydi2eNRqTPLR7rGreXUjWuiybAeE8FrT90juAVn4nSdhlNdWcUXCtHVyv9iELcGGU/s1600/20131129_092900.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivZWceV9AMJp3qWzxoP6XQxdab_6bfaIgPerjKmyUw5tWQk0qyMwHUiRI3xCJ_kEuJNR1OnY7MQOydi2eNRqTPLR7rGreXUjWuiybAeE8FrT90juAVn4nSdhlNdWcUXCtHVyv9iELcGGU/s1600/20131129_092900.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Who would even want to park here if the rest of the lot was totally full? This</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">photo </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">is the side lot of the Ross department store shown in the preceding</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">photo. There </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">is not even an entrance anywhere on this entire side of the</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">building. Wasted spaces. (photo by author).</span></div>
</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left;">My friend Ron Beitler took this photo in the early afternoon on Black Friday </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left;">at the Caramoor Village strip </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: right;"><span style="text-align: left;">mall in Macungie, PA. Again, overkill on the </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left;">parking spaces. Ron also blogged about Black Friday Parking at: </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.ronbeitler.com/2013/11/29/the-ridiculousness-of-minimum-parking-standards/">http://www.ronbeitler.com/2013/11/29/the-ridiculousness-of-minimum-parking-standards/</a></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left;">.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Dozens of photos from other shopping centers around the
country showed similar scenes – deserted asphalt at all but the couple hundred
feet immediately surrounding big box stores and strip malls.
I think Strong Towns had a great idea in organizing this Twitter event, because
it hopefully will help to spark discussion around the country about how minimum
parking standards waste both dollars and space, creating eyesores that are
daunting to pedestrian traffic while they create unnecessary stormwater runoff. We all need to let our local officials know that we demand intelligent design standards for new developments and redevelopment projects.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I also will acknowledge that these </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">#BlackFridayParking </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Twitter pics certainly do
not constitute a scientific study of this problem. I don’t think that Charles
Marohn intended this experiment to be anything more than an exercise in
anecdotes.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">However, these photos from around the country got me thinking back 30+ years ago to when I worked part time at the Sears store at Montgomery Mall
near Lansdale in suburban Philadelphia. I remember jam-packed parking lots at
the mall on Black Friday as well as in the evenings 3-4 days before Christmas Eve. I have to wonder whether the week
before Christmas in the first dozen years of the 21<sup>st</sup> century has continued to max out parking capacity at Montgomery Mall. Specifically, I wonder if
the explosion of on-line shopping over the past 10 years has relieved some of
the load on mall parking lots during the holiday shopping season. I’m not sure
how a researcher could actually go back to look at parking density throughout
holiday shopping seasons over the past 15 years to try to identify trends that
could be correlated to the increasing popularity of or dependence on internet
shopping (unless NSA would be willing to share some historic satellite images
with us). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Frankly, I would be surprised if the advent of the on-line
economy has not relieved some of the parking pressure at mortar & bricks
retail establishments. And in that likely case, how crazy would it be for
municipalities to continue to rely on minimum parking standards that were
written for a pre-internet world?</span><o:p></o:p></div>
Scott Alderferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17545537207383745803noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3904068358841224370.post-33247165575512851642013-11-05T12:52:00.001-05:002013-11-05T12:52:50.015-05:00The Most Important Day of the Year for Conservation Issues<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Today, Election Day, is probably the most important day of the year for anyone concerned about conservation issues. Today is the day that each of us who are registered to vote have the ability to join together to shape the future debate on matters such as Smart Growth, </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">protection of fisheries, </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">endangered species preservation, and whether gas drillers should have to pay a tax on the volume of natural gas they produce (like they do in every state except Pennsylvania).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I think Election Day is pretty darn exciting. Aren't each of us somewhat honored when our peers ask for us our opinion about something (other than when telemarketers are doing surveys)? I love having the opportunity twice a year to go into a voting booth and cast my ballot for issues I think are important and for candidates who I think will champion the issues that I feel are important.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Today is the day that each of us has the opportunity to go to the polls and vote for the candidate or candidates who are best aligned with our conservation ideals. How many people do you know who care deeply about environmental issues but fail to show up at the polls for every election? The percentages turnout of of registered voters vary by community around the country. In my municipality, it tends to range between 12-14%. Pretty poor.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I spent about an hour and a half this morning handing out campaign literature to voters arriving at a local polling station. I was hearing reports that turnout appeared to be pretty good (as of mid-morning) compared with recent general election years. The weather started out cold, but by midday now, it's party sunny and in the low 50's. So that could help boost turnout. It's sad that people in other countries would kill or die for the right to vote, and some of our own neighbors won't go vote if the weather seems inconvenient.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<div style="background-color: #edeff4; font-family: Arial;">
<span style="background-color: transparent;">But I saw something this morning at the polling place that still has me scratching my head. </span>Within 5 minutes of each other, I saw two cars pull in, each with a man and a woman. In both cases, the gentleman got out of the car and went inside to vote. Both women remained in their respective cars. One of them appeared to be doing her nails. The other one was reading a newspaper. These two women were 40 feet away from the door of the polling place, and they did not get out of the car and walk inside to vote. I don't get it.</div>
<div style="background-color: #edeff4; font-family: Arial;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: #edeff4; font-family: Arial;">
It can be very time consuming and potentially frustrating to attend municipal and county commissioner meetings a couple times a month to keep an eye on our elected officials and share our opinions with them. But two times a year, once in the spring and once in the fall, when we have the opportunity, the privilege, to cast our vote, why on earth would we not do so? Many folks complain that both major political parties have been taken over by extremists. That just means it's time for the average person to get out there to modulate who is getting elected to office. It's most crucial in local elections, because the local level is where the decisions are made that impact our daily lives. </div>
<div style="background-color: #edeff4; font-family: Arial;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: #edeff4; font-family: Arial;">
There are just under 7 hours remaining today to vote. If you have not done so yet, please get up, walk, bike, or drive to your polling place, and cast your vote. Because today is the day that your opinion matters the most.</div>
Scott Alderferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17545537207383745803noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3904068358841224370.post-12262766077473204932013-10-14T21:44:00.002-04:002013-10-14T22:37:44.872-04:00Why Smart Growth is a Conservation Issue<div dir="ltr">
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Some readers who have heard the term Smart
Growth might recall that the term somehow has something to do with zoning or
deciding whether to build a new strip mall or
similar sedentary activities. And they might think, 'Why should
I care about a new Walmart? I just want to fish, or watch birds, or (fill
in your favorite outdoor activity here).'<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Stream Hugger has always been about
interpreting conservation issues in a way that is relatable to the general
public. I hope this particular post will explain how certain land use
decisions, even in already developed areas, can affect the environment in
surrounding undeveloped areas.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Smart Growth is a land use principle that
can be summed up in two words: common sense. Instead of allowing
unchecked sprawl in the hope of future prosperity and publicly funding
infrastructure with no regard for its long-term costs, we need to call a time
out. Take a deep breath. Get it through our heads that we are not
in a big, imaginary race against the neighboring municipality to get built-out
before they do so that we can get our share of the riches that developers
always promise. The ruse that we have to allow property owners to do
what they want with their hundred-acre parcels in the name of "property
rights" and "stimulating the economy" is hogwash, because every
other property owner in that community has a right to not have their properties
adversely affected by poorly vetted and illogical new development.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">From the <a href="http://www.smartgrowthamerica.org/what-is-smart-growth"><span style="color: #0000f6; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Smart Growth America</span></a> website, "Smart growth means building
urban, suburban and rural communities with housing and transportation choices
near jobs, shops and schools. This approach supports local economies and
protects the environment." Let's focus on how Smart Growth can protect the
environment.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpFrqhQXhtIrkHPClIy7KCAhkJBorKxFR7WJDr1zmKZXs7MxjAlTK6Fh9pCgQL1xjNPoU07C4K9qMmk44OYgGc-P4oIygTWXGahAobZwfZDn4qvohvj7B3Dugu2HyXYIR_MuUFin0V0Ng/s1600/Walmart+Lot.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpFrqhQXhtIrkHPClIy7KCAhkJBorKxFR7WJDr1zmKZXs7MxjAlTK6Fh9pCgQL1xjNPoU07C4K9qMmk44OYgGc-P4oIygTWXGahAobZwfZDn4qvohvj7B3Dugu2HyXYIR_MuUFin0V0Ng/s1600/Walmart+Lot.jpg" height="225" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This big-box store has way more parking spaces than it needs,<br />which needlessly creates more stormwater runoff than it should.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #262626; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Projects that are approved and
built under Smart Growth principles tend to require less pavement than
traditional projects. So more of the precipitation that falls on a parcel can
soak into the soil to recharge groundwater rather than running off to a
municipal stormwater system. For commercial developments, Smart Growth can mean
requiring a realistic number of parking spaces rather than a cookbook number of
parking spaces based soley on square-footage of the buildings. This reduction
in parking space, as well as allowing new types of permeable paving options and
encouraging green roofs, can result in significant decreases in stormwater
runoff compared with traditional big-box development practices. </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieK46MwQzQu-ff4oL8QeWK54Tpve_aDUVAebpRuyGoOMDn-ShZJOIj3fH2wP9xT0_4KiNKnzdl5bTV8z1SxYbbHe2xObs0i-ls-mWbuPo0jlV3OOGSymk_fNmecfRBDpjZJLaolAKV7Iw/s1600/Farm+Field.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieK46MwQzQu-ff4oL8QeWK54Tpve_aDUVAebpRuyGoOMDn-ShZJOIj3fH2wP9xT0_4KiNKnzdl5bTV8z1SxYbbHe2xObs0i-ls-mWbuPo0jlV3OOGSymk_fNmecfRBDpjZJLaolAKV7Iw/s1600/Farm+Field.jpg" height="180" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Smart Growth,
however, is not just about <i>what</i> we
build. It’s also about <i>where</i> we build. Smart Growth encourages building more densely
in already developed areas – building where the people already are. If we
encourage development in areas in or near where people are already working,
going to school, shopping, and playing, we can minimize the footprint of new
development. Concentrating the growth
near existing uses helps to keep surrounding open spaces open so that they can
continue to absorb and filter stormwater runoff as nature intended.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-DtZvfrLtCn5uxcBxnOLRMO45_YNOMhe3m4VHwo89AZ93XCf1GAVO4iBOGBSGcw5KDbKiZUYJSfAuIAa_QnhtfX_3orrBpb74LX9lcWSLs_g11uOzQQrQFFAHydSCiNGUEyvLiUPFRXc/s1600/Discharge.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-DtZvfrLtCn5uxcBxnOLRMO45_YNOMhe3m4VHwo89AZ93XCf1GAVO4iBOGBSGcw5KDbKiZUYJSfAuIAa_QnhtfX_3orrBpb74LX9lcWSLs_g11uOzQQrQFFAHydSCiNGUEyvLiUPFRXc/s1600/Discharge.jpg" height="180" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #262626; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">A <a href="http://www.epa.gov/smartgrowth/built.htm">recently published study</a>
showed that even modest increases in development density can significantly
reduce water quality problems associated with development. The study, from the
Chesapeake Bay watershed, found that when development was concentrated it
required about half as much impervious surface as sparsely developed land and </span>resulted in 43% less polluting runoff stormwater<span style="color: #262626;"> runoff.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg13pxBFPZsRh9KFn2lddTyqjbh81j440qAnXPJgrmsrvbW6p6OyPDF2wYhrjqCSW36IS14IZwJ56ILSXunqb0s2tkH_yf5aSwGc4BSvaEpPFIkvTE3ZFcOFX7FHnhiq86bDf17dffI3z0/s1600/creek5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg13pxBFPZsRh9KFn2lddTyqjbh81j440qAnXPJgrmsrvbW6p6OyPDF2wYhrjqCSW36IS14IZwJ56ILSXunqb0s2tkH_yf5aSwGc4BSvaEpPFIkvTE3ZFcOFX7FHnhiq86bDf17dffI3z0/s1600/creek5.jpg" height="180" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #262626; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">By focusing development on already-developed areas we are also preserving
wildlife habitat. Habitat loss is the </span><a href="http://www.epa.gov/smartgrowth/built.htm"><span style="color: #266ebb; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">main threat to 80%</span></a><span style="color: #262626; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> of the threatened and endangered species in the U.S.
</span><span style="color: #1d1d1d; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Focusing growth
within an existing community, rather than outside of town on a greenfield,
helps preserve wildlife habitat, protects water quality and avoids the costs
associated with dispersed infrastructure.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgF40gTY6k-NmEX1vHnKJLr6LJsNqtTPXRgG-wrxkuigU8WdxBrUaR41JeCm5cIHi36wW7wiZQsn7TRnyyOtsFY7utjc6ycUKrK-pjcIyYz2GV8O1b6eVQlIeNZfuM5se6RMbSa1DgyFmc/s1600/Caterpillar.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgF40gTY6k-NmEX1vHnKJLr6LJsNqtTPXRgG-wrxkuigU8WdxBrUaR41JeCm5cIHi36wW7wiZQsn7TRnyyOtsFY7utjc6ycUKrK-pjcIyYz2GV8O1b6eVQlIeNZfuM5se6RMbSa1DgyFmc/s1600/Caterpillar.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #1d1d1d; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Studies have found that smart
growth development <a href="http://www.epa.gov/smartgrowth/built.htm"><span style="color: #1d56b4; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">helps bird
species flourish</span></a>, with more birds and a greater diversity of species
in smart growth areas than areas with dispersed development. Protecting open
space, parks and farmland means strengthening existing communities, attracting
businesses, and avoiding the costs associated with supporting dispersed </span>infrastructure. Communities with
well-maintained neighborhood parks and extensive park systems have been
shown to consistently attract and retain businesses.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Smart growth offers aesthetic and economic
advantages for our communities. And it can protect wildlife habitat and water quality in the undeveloped areas that we rely on for rest and relaxation. We need to demand that our municipal
officials get on board with Smart Growth principles.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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Scott Alderferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17545537207383745803noreply@blogger.com1