By Colleen Meehan, Philadelphia Program Organizer
Last week was Hurricane Irene, this week it’s Tropical Storm Lee. What does that mean for Pennsylvania and other Mid-Atlantic states? It means we have massive flooding.
Pennsylvania is a state of rivers and streams. And when it pours, they flood. Roads are closed and over 100,000 residents along the Susquehanna River were ordered to evacuate. They’ve even packed up the Governor’s Mansion in Harrisburg.
This flooding is a result of sprawl and poor stormwater management. Sprawl increases flooding by replacing wetland areas, forests and meadows with development. Cities and towns bury small tributaries in order to build on top of them. These small streams once worked to slow the movement of water downstream. Today, stormwater systems are designed to move water through cities and towns as fast as possible and push it downstream. Too bad for the folks downstream, right?
Too bad for the citizens of Pennsylvania. We have a Governor who eliminated all funding for the Flood Control Projects in the Department of Environmental Protection.
President Obama declared a state of emergency for Pennsylvania. Governor Corbett declared a “public health emergency because sewage treatment plants are underwater and no longer working,” due to stress on our sewer systems. In rain events like we’ve endured recently, the combined sewers can’t handle the pressure and as a result they overflow. The “flood water is toxic and polluted,” Corbett admitted.
What can we do? A solution to help mediate flooding is better stormwater management practices such as:
- Porous pavement in place of impervious surfaces
- Native plant gardens and rain gardens
- Green Roofs
- Wetland and woodland protection ordinances
- Development and redevelopment ordinances that require builders to control for first 1.5 inches of rainfall
And for the fourth year in a row, Pennsylvania is in desperate need of funding for the Department of Environmental Protection. Without it, the state’s public health and environment will continue to suffer.
It’s now up to municipalities to adopt serious stormwater control ordinances, and up to property owners to take responsibility for the rain that falls on their land.
