Action Alerts
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25 Pa. Code Chapter 95 - Wastewater Treatment Requirements
Discharge limits for Total Dissolved Solids (TDS)
In recent months, we’ve all learned what happens to our water when Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) levels are allowed to go unchecked. For Dunkard Creek, excessively high TDS resulted in a massive loss of aquatic life, stretching across 43 miles of stream. For 350,000 citizens who depend on the Monongahela River Basin for their drinking water, excessively high TDS levels in fall 2008 meant they no longer had safe drinking water coming out of the tap.
The DEP currently considers dilution into fresh water as the only “treatment” for TDS. Unfortunately, we have reached a point where science indicates that many of the Commonwealth’s waterways cannot assimilate any additional TDS loads. Tell the DEP the dilution was never a treatment, and if industries want to withdraw fresh, clean water from our streams and lakes, then that’s exactly what we expect them to put back!
The DEP and Environmental Quality Board are currently considering new rules for discharge of wastewater that specifically address TDS, sulfates, and chlorides. The proposed amendments include the establishment of effluent standards for new sources of wastewaters containing high Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) concentrations. The EQB will be accepting written comments until February 12, 2010. Please use this tool to send your comments to the EQB today!
Click here to view the proposed rule as published in the PA Bulletin on November 7, 2009.
Click here to submit comments to the Environmental Hearing Board today.
Click here to view the "Plain Language Summary" prepared by the DEP Office of the Environmental Advocate to aid public participation. The Office of Environmental Advocate has also prepare a template letter if you would like to submit comments via mail which can be downloaded here.
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HB 1847 - Consol Coal Refuse Disposal Area at Bailey Mine
Our water should not be threatened just to accommodate the destructive practices of the coal industry. Wednesday, July 22nd, HB 1847 passed the House Environmental Resource and Energy Committee (ERE) and now the bill moves onto the Appropriations Committee. If passed, this bill will bypass the protections of the endangered species action in order to construct yet another coal waste impoundment and slurry pond.
Call your representatives today and insist that they protect OUR water and OUR communities and NOT the coal companies. Members of the House Appropriations Committee can be viewed here. Please call your representative and ask them not to support HB1847.
US Fish and Wildlife Service have documented that the proposed CRDA No. 5 site clearly contains the Indiana bat, and that it is NOT ELIGIBLE for use as a coal refuse disposal area. Rather that comply with the law, Consol is now seeking to change the law. Please call your representative immediately and remind them that the laws are intended to serve and protect citizens, not corporations and the coal industry.
The proposed Bailey CRDA site would bury nearly 5 miles of streams and more than 5 acres of wetlands including a home of the Indiana Bat, a federally endangered animal. If HB 1847 passes, because proposed CRDA No. 5 is adjacent to two existing CRDAs, Nos. 1 and 3, this location would become a "preferred site" under the new Section 4.1(a)(6). If HB 1847 were enacted, the CRDA No. 5 site would be transformed from a prohibited site to a preferred site. It would go from being completely off limits to being at the top of the list.
The only “no” votes in the ERE Committee came from Reps. Houghton and Santasiero.
There were also six who did not vote at all. Please call and thank these representatives for not supporting HB1847
and feel free to voice your displeasure with the rest. The full voting record can be viewed here.
Please contact the Center for Coalfield Justice at 724-229-3550 for additional information on this bill and how you can help defeat it.
View House Bill 1847
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