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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 12, 2008
Contact: Tracy Polovick
Coordinator of Communications and Outreach
(717) 787-8524
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Senate Passes Vance's Third-Party Study of Chesapeake Bay Tributary Strategy Costs

HARRISBURG – The Senate today approved a resolution sponsored by Sen. Pat Vance (R-Cumberland/York) that requires a third-party study of the costs for sewage treatment facilities to fulfill the Chesapeake Bay Tributary Strategy (CBTS).

"Just this week the Chesapeake Bay Foundation joined those requesting that the state assist with the costs of implementing the Chesapeake Bay Tributary Strategy," Vance said. "In addition, the Department of Environmental Protection has given a variety of figures about what it will cost municipalities to do necessary upgrades. We need to find out what the true costs are before funding sources can be more thoroughly discussed."

Senate Resolution 224 directs the Legislative Budget and Finance Committee to review estimates of the costs that sewage treatment facilities will incur to comply with the CBTS.

"The Legislative Budget and Finance Committee has an excellent reputation for doing these type of studies in a nonpartisan, objective way," Vance added. "I have full confidence in the work of their staff."

Pennsylvania has been working with other states over the last two decades to implement programs to improve the water quality of the Chesapeake Bay. In 2005 the governor unveiled Pennsylvania's bay strategy. It was designed by the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to implement multi-state agreements intended to achieve significant reductions in the pollutants that have degraded the bay by 2010. These pollutants can come from a variety of sources: agriculture, stormwater runoff, wastewater treatment plants, septic systems, forested lands and atmospheric deposition.

Vance's district includes all of Cumberland County and Carroll, Fairview, Franklin, Monaghan, Warrington and Washington townships and Dillsburg, Franklintown and Wellsville boroughs in York County.