Pennsylvania’s history of protecting its water supply has been slow and unsteady, pandering much of the time to industrialists who have polluted the state’s rivers.
Now the state, along with New York and Maryland, face a federal deadline next year to show improvement in the vast Susquehanna River basin, which drains into the Chesapeake Bay.
As the longest river in the eastern United States, and draining 27,500 square miles, it is fed by the West Branch, which originates from headwaters in Cambria County.
Its pollution history:
• The first government survey of the West Branch was after the deadly 1889 flood.
• Congress then was told that the West Branch could never be made navigable, and that “the river is not worthy of improvement.”
• For the past century, unregulated acid mine drainage turned the waters a toxic orange color and killed the fish in Cambria and Clearfield counties’ streams.
• Additionally, Pennsylvania’s attempts to control sewage discharges were weak, if at all. In 1923 the General Assembly created a Sanitary Water Board to issue sewage discharge permits. But the three members of the governor’s cabinet and three citizens who made up the board were under orders to operate under this basic assumption:
The pubic welfare depended on industrial prosperity. Clean streams ranked second.
• In 1932, the Pennsylvania Federation of Sportsmen’s Club was formed and quickly became a powerful lobbying force behind the landmark 1937 Clean Streams Act, which for the first time set penalties for water pollution. But the coal industry, probably then the major polluter of the West Branch, was exempted from compliance.
• In 1977, things changed in Pennsylvania. The coal mining firm most active in northern Cambria County, Barnes and Tucker, suffered this legal setback: Whereas in 1886 the courts declared that their mine discharges were merely a “trifling inconvenience”, the 1977 state Supreme Court ruling required them to treat their discharges. By then the Sanitary Water Board had been disbanded, replaced by the Department of Environmental Resources.
• The new state mandate was this: “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.
In 1983 the Chesapeake Bay cleanup agreement was signed, and efforts began to clean up
the Susquehanna basins, including the West Branch head-waters in northern Cambria County.
Local News
Federal deadline looms for river cleanup programs
- Local News
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Two Cambria district judge offices to be cut
Two of Cambria County’s 10 magisterial districts could be eliminated as President Judge Timothy Creany looks at realigning boundaries to cut costs while taking into consideration caseloads of the district judges and population changes.
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Westmont couple inseparable, even in death
People who knew James and Marjorie Landis of Westmont said the two were nearly always together.
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Company buys valuables from people ready to unload
Jan Hagerich’s buffalo nickel was “healthy” – which was unhealthy for her finances.
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Blogging with heart
I was feeling overwhelmed yesterday, so today, I’m organizing my work. I have talked to probably a couple dozen people for Heart Month stories and I have pages and pages of notes.
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Special Olympics return to region
More than 300 athletes eager to show off their skills, along with 135 coaches, will be coming to the region to take part in the 2012 Special Olympics Pennsylvania Winter Games.
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Special Olympics Schedule
Here is a list of events related to the Pennsylvania Special Olympics Winter Games through Tuesday at venues across the region:
Saturday
• Laurel Highlands Polar Plunge to benefit Special Olympics; Quemahoning Reservoir near Boswell; registration at 9:30 a.m.; plunge at 1 p.m. -
Water rates going up to pay for line project
An estimated $9 million Windber Area Authority transmission line project will likely head toward construction late this summer.
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Citizens eye cost-cutting measures
A total of 16 members of a concerned citizens group volunteered to serve on a committee to develop cost-saving ideas that will be presented to the Westmont Hilltop school board.
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Critz co-sponsoring bills that support emergency responders
U.S. Rep. Mark Critz, D-Johnstown, said he is co-sponsoring several bills that support emergency responders.
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IN BRIEF | Police investigating shooting of city man
State police in Indiana County are investigating the shooting of a Johnstown man late Tuesday or early Wednesday, authorities said.
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