DEP Blames EPA for DEP's
Failure in Water Standards

                               by   H. Snyder

     Four years ago - in October of 1994 - a petition to
upgrade the designation of the waters of the Maiden
Creek and all its attendant tributaries, in Berks
County, Pennsylvania, to Exceptional Value was submitted
to DEP.  The stream qualified both at the time of
submission, and today for such special protection,
because its waters provided habitat for several
threatened and endangered plant, and animal species.
After four years of delay there has been no positive
action from DEP.

     The reasons for this vary depending upon to whom
one is talking: DEP officials have been telling
frustrated citizens, concerned with protecting their
water quality, that they are unable to act because EPA
has preempted state water quality standards in a January
1997 rulemaking; while EQB officials simply state that
DEP has "decided to delay proposing new High Quality and
Exceptional Value stream designations for waters where
the designation recommendations would be altered by a
revised antidegradation regulation."

     Either answer boggles the mind.

     In the case of the former, a simple read of the
published EPA regs on EV waters clearly shows a far
different case - federal supplementing rather than a
total preemption, "The intent of this ONRW [Ed. note:
Outstanding National Resource Waters] proposal was not
to replace or supplant the Exceptional Value category
and designations in place in Pennsylvania, but rather to
supplement them." Clearly DEP is NOT prohibited from
giving EV designations to additional Pennsylvania
streams, and its refusal to do so constitutes a blatant
deception of the public.

     In the case of the latter, DEP is clearly proposing
new regulatory language that would eliminate the
endangered species qualifier for EV designation. The
deliberate delay shows an outrageous disregard for
fairness and the legal principal of "grandfathering".  A
proposal should always continue to be subject to the
rules in effect at the time of submission. It is a
blatant denial of deserved protection to a valued
resource and a case of double standard. If a developer
were to submit a subdivision plan today, the plan would
continue to be subject to those ordinances in effect at
the time of the submission, (unless he voluntarily
decides to subject his project to the new ordinances).
For example, if his plan legitimately calls for lots of
one acre in size, and two months later the municipality
requires two-acre minimum lot sizes, the developer
retains the right to create one-acre lots.

     The above matter shows DEP in an arrogant disregard
for both its own rules and the citizens of the
Commonwealth who have sought special protection for
their waters. And further serves to foster and maintain
a sense of cynicism and mistrust of state government.