Does a Riparian Buffer Belong in a City Park?

Allentown’s Morning Call recently published an Op-Ed piece written by local blogger Michael Molovinsky, who has a passion for preserving historic structures in the city’s renowned Lehigh Parkway. Lehigh Parkway was the beneficiary of a number of Works Progress Administration (WPA) projects during the 1930s, with various massive stone bridges, fountains, walls, and stairs remaining in various states of repair.  So there are plenty of historic structures in Lehigh Parkway for residents to take pride in and care for.  In my mind though, the most prominent feature of Lehigh Parkway is the Little Lehigh Creek, which the Parkway follows for about three miles through the city.

Little Lehigh Creek in Lehigh Parkway
(photo credit:  wikipedia.org)

In his Op-Ed, Molovinsky blasted a riparian buffer restoration project planned for Lehigh Parkway and denigrated the efforts of the Wildlands Conservancy, a local non-profit engaged in ecosystem restoration and preservation.  Wildlands obtained the necessary permits and outside funding to replant riparian buffers along the Little Lehigh in the Parkway. Volunteers from the Little Lehigh Chapter of Trout Unlimited, of which I am a member, will assist with replanting the buffers.

Molovinsky implied that Wildlands is a special interest group trying to hijack Lehigh Parkway for riparian buffer experiments that would compromise the public’s view of and access to the creek. He said that the function of a riparian buffer is to filter fertilizer from rain runoff and from entering the creek and lamented that current streamside buffers are nothing more than strips of weeds that block the view of and access to the creek.  This is a shortsighted accusation, however, because riparian buffer restorations have been proven to improve the health of streams.  A healthy riparian buffer of 50 feet or greater would typically include various native plants, shrubs, and trees. They would absorb stormwater runoff to mitigate flooding, shade the summer sun to keep the spring-fed waters cool, and provide habitat for various insect species that will be a food source for both fish and birds.  A properly restored riparian buffer would indeed be aesthetically pleasing rather than the weedy eyesore envisioned by Molovinsky.

Dog in Lehigh Parkway. Most, but not all, dog owners

clean up after their pooches.

(photo credit:  http://www.delawareandlehigh.org)

The neatly mowed stream banks that Molovinsky idealizes allow sediment and pollutants, including geese and dog feces, unchecked access to the Little Lehigh, which is a drinking water source for the city of Allentown and some of the surrounding areas west of the city.  A drinking water source for well over 140,000 people, and Molovinsky is worried about a riparian buffer impairing the view of the creek?

With designated pathways mowed through the riparian buffers, the public could still access the stream, the buffers could still perform their intended functions, and the diverse ecosystem that thrives in a healthy riparian buffer could re-establish itself.  A healthy riparian buffer begets a healthy stream.

In addition to his Op-Ed stand against riparian buffer restoration, Molovinsky's blog also trashed a related effort by Wildlands Conservancy to remove two dams in Lehigh Parkway. Wildlands had obtained the necessary permits from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (PADEP), the state body in charge of dams, to remove these two dams. They had the green light from the city’s parks department to remove these dams, which cause the water to slow down and sediment to build up behind them.  But at the 11^th hour, Molovinsky tried to block removal of one of the dams, located just 18 feet downstream from the WPA-built Robin Hood Bridge, claiming without basis that removal would cause stream-bed scour that would undermine the bridge and cause it to wash out. Just days ago, however, following a public hearing by city council, Allentown’s mayor gave his approval for the dam removals after it became clear that Wildlands had done the proper engineering due diligence to rule out any adverse effects on the Robin Hood bridge from removal of the adjacent dam.  More obsolete dams have been removed in Pennsylvania than in any other state.  Why would PADEP have approved the dam removal if the effects on any nearby structures had not been properly evaluated?

Come on, Michael.  Environmental folks and history buffs need to work together to protect special places from the effects of over-development and urbanization.  We should not be at odds unnecessarily over things like removing detrimental dams and planting protective riparian buffers.

Joggers in Lehigh Parkway (photo credit: Express Times)

Nostalgia is tricky.  It can cause us to myopically yearn for a distant, simpler, and more picturesque time.  But 21^st century scientists and anglers recognize that riparian buffers and dam removals are the key to the health of any stream.  In environmental science, just as in medical science, we are fortunate to have advanced far beyond common practices of the mid-1900s.

Update on Post about PA Natural Gas Exports

Stream Hugger's post from July 9, 2013, explained how the Corbett administration has enacted laws that clearly favor natural gas drillers, often at the expense residents of the Commonwealth and often those Pennsylvanians who lease their land to drillers for gas exploration or production.  In that post, I cautioned against exporting PA's natural gas oversees because loss of that supply to our domestic market could drive up costs to American consumers.

Two days ago I came across a story from Pittsburgh's Tribune-Review that told of some unwelcome consequences for a few western PA landowners resulting from Sunoco's impending construction of a pipeline to transport natural gas from western PA to a port on the Delaware River south of Philadelphia.  It seems that lawyers for Sunoco Logistics Partners LP discovered a loophole that will allow the company to take private land that they need for their pipeline route by eminent domain.  Why can a corporate giant like Sunoco Logistics Partners force a landowner into selling their land against their will?  In this case, the natural gas export facility will be in Marcus Hook, PA, located on the Delaware River, which has had a fair amount of overseas shipping traffic since the Swedes first took over the native Lenni Lenape village at that location in the 1640s.  As can be seen on the aerial photo below, only the northeastern corner of Marcus Hook is residential.  Most of the borough was occupied by the former Sunoco oil refinery for several decades until only a couple of years ago.  Then Sunoco Logistics Partners bought the former refinery from their parent company to convert it to a major export hub for natural gas.

Marcus Hook, PA (screen shot from Google Maps).

The loophole that allows Logistics Partners to use eminent domain to take whatever property they need for their pipeline route is available because this particular pipeline route from Western PA to Marcus Hook, PA, will cross a state line, making it subject to federal interstate commerce laws.  As you can see in the aerial photo, the Sunoco plant actually straddles the state line with Delaware, and the last one-half mile of the route will be in Delaware.  How convenient for Sunoco Logistics Partners, and how unfortunate for PA landowners in the path of the planned pipeline.  But we cannot blame this situation on the Gov. Corbett's need to pay back the $1 million in campaign contributions that he received from the natural gas industry.  This law was already on the books.

The bottom line here is that Sunoco Logistics Partners will be looking to export as much of PA's natural gas as they are able to load onto outbound ships.  Like I said in my post a couple weeks ago, as more gas leaves the domestic market, the greater risk we domestic users have for losing the low natural gas prices we've been experiencing recently and the less likely we will see a major shift to cleaner-burning natural gas vehicles.  So we will still be dependent on foreign petroleum.  The politicians who sold us on bending over backwards to accommodate natural gas drilling faster than appropriate regulations could be enacted must be held accountable for allowing the U.S.'s energy independence to be shipped overseas.

Stormwater Dischargers May Soon Have to Pay in PA

Two weeks ago, Pennsylvania took a huge step forward to empower its municipalities to better manage stormwater with the signing into law of Senate Bill 351, which amended the Commonwealth’s statutes governing municipalities to specifically allow the creation of municipal stormwater authorities (MSAs).

A handful of municipalities in PA have already created MSAs, but there have reportedly been several more municipalities that have considered creating MSAs but have been reluctant to do so in the absence of a statute explicitly authorizing such bodies.  This legislation provides that authorization for creation of MSAs that are empowered to finance, build, maintain, and operate municipal stormwater projects and infrastructure. This authorization would include assessing usage fees.

Local governments in Pennsylvania have needed additional tools to help them address the escalating costs of managing stormwater to address both flooding problems and regulatory requirements for surface water quality.  I’ve read about complaints from many smaller municipalities about unfunded mandates from both the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (PADEP) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).  And it is understandable that a second-class township in Pennsylvania might not have the budget to take on ambitious stormwater management projects without significant tax increases to their residents.  This newly passed legislation expressly allows municipalities in PA to create municipal stormwater authorities to deal with PADEP and EPA stormwater mandates.

Establishing an MSA would help create a stable source of funding for municipal stormwater management planning and infrastructure and even for flood mitigation projects.   MSAs can assess property owners that discharge stormwater to public infrastructure or to surface waters of the Commonwealth based on the volume of stormwater they discharge.  These MSA usage fees would provide incentives for private property owners to install and maintain stormwater management infrastructure on their own properties, thus reducing costs to local governments and taxpayers for managing runoff from larger private tracts.  The United States Geological Survey estimates that, in urban areas, impervious surfaces (parking lots, sidewalks, and buildings) account for 53.9% of the surface area.  That means that, in urban areas, less than half of the land surface is available to allow stormwater to infiltrate into the ground.  Therefore, appropriate controls must be in place to prevent oil, grease, and debris from being washed into surface waters with stormwater runoff from these extensive urban and suburban impervious surfaces.

To put this into proper perspective, about two years ago PADEP initiated a requirement that new development projects (post-construction) must manage all of their stormwater on-site for any storm events up to 2-year storms (in other words, storms in which the maximum rainfall statistically would occur only once every 2 years).  Developers don't like having to build large stormwater retention basins, because these structures take up land that they would otherwise build on or pave over (creating even more impervious surfaces).  The on-going problem in PA stems from projects that were approved and built more than a couple of years ago.  Those are the properties that need to step up now and pay for their share of the public infrastructure, along with all properties that rely on public infrastructure to manage runoff in excess of 2-year storms.

I know there will be some people griping that this legislation somehow amounts to a new tax – a stormwater tax.  Hogwash.  One of the first things that any student of economics learns is TANSTAFL – the acronym standing for, “There Are No Such Things As Free Lunches.”  Whether we’re talking lunch or stormwater discharge, if you are not paying for it yourself, someone else is paying for it.  In the case of a shopping center discharging huge volumes of stormwater runoff from their expansive parking lots during and following intense rain events, that property is sending way more stormwater runoff to the nearest body of surface water than the undeveloped land would have discharged.  Therefore, that shopping center should improve their capacity to retain and infiltrate stormwater on their own property.  If they chose to ignore that responsibility, the local taxpayers should not pay for infrastructure to mitigate that runoff, and they should not be inconvenienced by flash flooding from inadequate, private stormwater management facilities.  Thus, a usage fee assessed by an MSA is exactly that – a fee for services rendered.  Cutting off a property owner from a free lunch – in this case taxpayer subsidized stormwater management – is clearly NOT a tax.

To be fair in this post, I have to direct some blame to municipalities themselves for, in most cases, having archaic and counter-productive zoning and land development ordinances that require far more parking capacity (and thus more impervious surfaces) than is really necessary at big box developments.  More realistic parking space requirements and provisions to allow rain gardens and some of the newer types of permeable pavement (ie. pervious surfaces) would go a long way to ease the stormwater impact of new commercial projects and to retrofit existing commercial developments.       

This new legislation simply makes MSAs legally legitimate entities.  It does not mandate any municipality to create an MSA.  Municipal leaders, both elected and volunteers, need to take the next step and form exploratory committees to thoroughly evaluate the pros and cons of creating an MSA for their municipalities.  Once municipalities look past the red herring of the "new tax" claim, I think it will be clear for most local governments that an MSA would greatly benefit their residents by relieving part of the current stormwater burden on their Public Works budgets.

(all photos copyrighted by author)

7/26/13 - Additional Info on SB 351
Last week when I first learned about SB 351, I wrote to my State Senator, Pat Browne, a co-sponsor of this legislation, to find out whether this legislation would apply to the case of multiple municipalities that wanted to create a joint MSA.  This would be significant, because stormwater and floodwater management must really be addressed in terms of an entire watershed.  And I've never seen a watershed whose boundaries followed the convoluted boundaries of any one particular municipality.  Good news.  I just received the following response from the Legislative Counsel in Sen. Browne's office, Vicki Wilken.  She said:
"It is my understanding from speaking with the prime sponsor of the legislation, Senator Erickson, that the intent of the legislation was to allow municipal authorities to do just as you mention in your email, allow those municipalities in the same watershed basin to work together on storm water management planning and projects.

 "SB 351 amends the Municipality Authorities Act (Chapter 56 of Title 53) by adding storm water management planning and projects to the purposes and powers of municipal authorities.   In addition, the act provides municipal authorities with the ability to engage in water management planning and projects, but they are not required to do so.  Further, those existing authorities may include these in their operation of existing projects."