View our most recent fact sheet: EPA Promises More Water Quality Enforcement in PA
Stormwater runoff from rainwater or melting snow transports pollutants into the stormwater system and ultimately into our local streams. Roads, parking lots, driveways, and rooftops prevent water from soaking into the ground. Instead, a large amount of stormwater goes directly into our streams. Because this stormwater runoff is not cleaned or filtered, many of our streams are polluted.
Managing waste products in Pennsylvania’s waterways is critical to addressing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) pollution reduction goals for the Chesapeake Bay Watershed. As Adam Ortiz, Mid-Atlantic Regional Administrator for the EPA recently noted, “We may live in different states in this region, but the rivers are shared by all, and each needs to do their part.”
In addition to improving Pennsylvania’s Phase III Watershed Implementation Plan (WIP) to meet the EPA’s established targets, it is necessary for legislators to tackle one of the common pollutants affecting the states streams — uncontrolled manure runoff — through improved manure control policies, as well as sufficient state funding and programs.
Until the Commonwealth’s WIP adequately addresses the shortfall of meeting the nitrogen reduction target, EPA will do the following:
• Increase agriculture and municipal stormwater inspections
• Increase permit oversight
• Heighten enforcement actions
• Redirect federal funds to cost-effective projects.
Feel free to use the fact sheet and any other materials on this page in any communication or educational outreach to local residents and business owners.
You cannot protect the environment unless you empower people, you inform them, and you help them understand that these resources are their own, that they must protect them.
~Professor Wangari Maathai
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