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A note from Oliver Bass, President of Natural Lands

Water is central to Natural Lands’ work preserving open space and caring for nature across eastern Pennsylvania, whether at our network of 43 nature preserves or on more than 400 other permanently preserved properties. Often, land’s ecological value is based on the streams and rivers that run through it, and we know that every acre saved as open space means cleaner drinking water and additional natural flood prevention for those downstream.

Pennsylvania is faced with a unique opportunity. The recent passage of the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 provides the Commonwealth with $7 billion in federal funds. Natural Lands and our colleagues across the state are advocating that a portion of this money—at least $500 million—should be invested in our state’s water resources which in turn support jobs, contribute to a vibrant recreation economy, and supply our drinking water.

We are fortunate to live in a water rich state with 86,000 miles of streams. With that abundance of resources, however, comes the responsibility to invest—and it is an investment that garners wide, bipartisan support in poll after poll across the state. In the fall of 2020, a poll commissioned by Conservation Voters of PA and the Growing Greener Coalition showed that nearly 90 percent of voters support funding for Pennsylvania’s land, water, and wildlife, even during the economic downturn of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Currently, one-third of Pennsylvania’s streams are polluted—unsafe for drinking, swimming, and fishing. Municipalities face huge costs for municipal storm water management. Farmers badly need help to design and implement conservation practices like forested stream buffers to keep soil and nutrients on the land instead of running into the water. Lack of investment in flood prevention leaves many Pennsylvanians highly vulnerable to loss of property and life.

Funding these needs out of the American Rescue Plan is a great fit. These are capital investments, not expenditures that have to be repeated (and supported out of the state general fund) after the federal money is gone. Dedicated funding mechanisms like the Clean Streams Fund and a reinvigorated Growing Greener III program, which have been put forth in recent months through co-sponsor memoranda, could help us capitalize on this opportunity and make lasting change.

American Rescue Plan dollars applied to green infrastructure would support myriad small businesses and good-paying jobs with them. Projects involve surveyors, appraisers, legal services, engineers, planners, carpenters, electricians, plumbers, and heavy equipment operators, among others. Supplies and equipment are needed from nurseries, lumber yards, quarries, building material suppliers, hardware stores, equipment manufacturers, and equipment rental businesses.

Increased investments for our water resources are required. Now is the time to act. If you agree, please take a moment to contact your state senator and representative and ask them to support the use of American Rescue Plan Act funds in this year’s budget.

find my legislators

1. Remind them that past state investments in specific conservation, restoration, or and/or recreation projects are still benefiting your community.
2. Explain to them that American Rescue Plan money can make new great projects happen in your community now—whether your focus is ensuring water quality; preventing flood damage; restoring streams, wetlands, and other wildlife habitat; improving outdoor recreational opportunities, or other conservation-related efforts.
3. Ask them to press their legislative leaders to take this once in a lifetime opportunity to invest in these projects.
4. Tell them that a great advantage of spending on these projects is that it doesn’t require state money for operations going forward. (Many legislators are concerned about creating new long-term operational expenses for the state when spending American Rescue Plan dollars.)

PA state government will receive $7 billion from the federal government through the American Rescue Plan. This presents a momentous opportunity for the Commonwealth to direct Rescue money to our huge and pressing green infrastructure needs.

Please call or email your state senator and representative this week, preferably TODAY, and urge them to use $500 million or more (7%) of American Rescue Plan funds for green infrastructure projects that will help communities now and for decades to come.

1. Remind them of how past state investments in specific conservation, restoration, or and/or recreation projects are still benefiting your community.
2. Also, explain to them that so much more can be done to help your community with a boost in state investment—whether your focus is ensuring water quality; preventing flood damage; restoring streams, wetlands, and other wildlife habitat; improving outdoor recreational opportunities, or other conservation-related efforts.

Pennsylvania’s needs are huge:

• Billions of dollars in water investments are needed on a multitude of fronts to restore 25,468 miles of Pennsylvania waterways that are unsafe for drinking, swimming, and fishing.
• Lack of investment in addressing stormwater management and flood prevention leave many Pennsylvanians highly vulnerable to loss of property, health, and life.
• Farmers need help to implement conservation practices like forested stream buffers to keep soil and nutrients on the land instead of running into the water.
• Untreated abandoned mine drainage, desolate abandoned mined lands, and uncapped oil and gas wells harm our water and drag down local economies.
• Our State Parks and Forests require nearly $1 billion in restoration and repair work.
• Local parks and community open spaces continue to see a surge (often doubling) in public usage and resulting wear-and-tear in this new era of increased interest in outdoor recreation.

Thank you for acting now for a better tomorrow.

1. Please call your state senator and representative TODAY and urge them to protect the state’s investments in conservation, environmental restoration, and outdoor recreation. Ask them to tell their Senate and House leaders that the Keystone Fund and Environmental Stewardship Fund should be left untouched as they and the Governor’s office seek to complete the fiscal year 2020-2021 budget.
2. Ideally, follow your call with a brief email confirming your request and thanking them for their time.
3. Then call Governor Wolf’s office at 717-787-2500 and urge them also to protect the Keystone Fund and Environmental Stewardship Fund.

• the Growing Greener Coalition’s letter to members of the General Assembly and Governor Wolf
• WeConservePA’s letter
• Pennsylvania Environmental Council’s letter
• KeystoneFund.org (information about the Keystone Fund)
• ESFund.info (information about the Environmental Stewardship Fund)

This week, the Environmental Stewardship Fund—known as Growing Greener—celebrates 20 years of protecting clean water, reducing flooding, conserving and restoring land, and improving parks and trails.

On December 15, 1999, Governor Ridge signed the bipartisan legislation that established the Environmental Stewardship Fund (ESF) to support projects to improve water quality, reduce flooding, preserve open space and farmland, restore damaged land, and enhance outdoor recreation.

1. Explain the importance of the ESF to your community. (Find specific ESF projects here.)
2. Let them know that with the huge problems facing Pennsylvania, and local projects in need of funding, a strong ESF is needed more than ever.
3. Ask them to increase state environmental investments for 2020–2021, including boosting ESF.

The 2019-2020 state budget that legislative leaders and Governor Wolf are moving to complete in the next few days includes a roughly $10 million diversion of Environmental Stewardship Fund (ESF) project investments to pay for government operations. A $10 million loss for Pennsylvania’s natural resources may not seem so bad to them given the much larger cuts proposed in February’s executive budget. Nevertheless, Pennsylvania shouldn’t be cutting $10 million from the environment when research demonstrates that the state is already underinvesting in environmental needs by $100s of millions each year.

1. Call Governor Wolf’s office at 717-787-2500. Urge his office to work with legislative leaders to undo this $10 million loss for ESF projects. Thank them for the Governor’s leadership in seeking to boost environmental funding through his Restore PA proposal, but also tell them that present environmental project funding shouldn’t be cut—not at all, that we shouldn’t move backward—while working to get Restore PA passed.
2. Call your state senator and representative and also tell them to undo the $10 million loss for Environmental Stewardship Fund projects—taking action any way they can. Point out to them that the General Assembly also needs to take leadership in addressing the annual multi-hundred million dollar shortfall in environmental investments. Ask them to take up these issues with their House and Senate leaders.

Resources and Background

Check out today’s Coalition letter to Pennsylvania legislators and Governor Wolf on this subject.

Why act now? Because the House will probably vote today and the Senate will probably vote soon after

See the Growing Greener Coalition’s website, https://pagrowinggreener.org for past Coalition communications and background material.

Visit GrowingGreener.info to learn more about how the projects funded by the Environmental Stewardship Fund benefit communities across Pennsylvania.

Find your legislators here.

“Silence is the voice of complicity.” I’m reluctant to use this maxim, knowing that good people face many obstacles to voicing their concerns: shyness, uncertainty as to facts, burnout from years of seemingly talking to brick walls. Nevertheless, in Harrisburg, silence is in effect a position—a tacit endorsement of wherever the status quo is heading.

In the coming weeks, your state legislators will choose whether to build on past constructive efforts to help Pennsylvania communities by restoring waterways to productive life, reducing flooding, repairing parks, and conserving land—or backslide by diverting money from state funds that were established specifically to fund these efforts.

Your state senators and representatives need to hear from you. Silence tells them that you don’t care deeply about conservation of our natural and recreational resources—that they should focus their energies and state monies elsewhere. Don’t let this happen. Reach out and tell them to:

1. Support the new green investments called for in the Governor’s Restore Pennsylvania proposal; and
2. Oppose any budget that would divert money from the community and conservation investments made by the Keystone Recreation, Park and Conservation Fund and the Environmental Stewardship Fund. (More about the budget threats here.)

Also, please distribute this message to your friends, family, and colleagues (or use parts of it as you see fit).

Thanks for caring.

Andrew M. Loza

Executive Committee Member, Growing Greener Coalition

Executive Director, Pennsylvania Land Trust Association

Background and Resources

Find your legislators here

Summary of Restore PA’s conservation and environmental components

Information about budget threats to the Keystone Fund and Environmental Stewardship Fund

Information about the Keystone Recreation, Park and Conservation Fund

Information about the Environmental Stewardship Fund

Please call your state senator today, preferably now, and urge them to support the pending Killion amendment to SB 575: A02156.

First and foremost, the pending Killion amendment will stop the practice of using Environmental Stewardship Fund monies to pay the debt service on the Growing Greener 2 bonds issued during the Rendell administration. This will free up $26 million annually for new projects that can be funded by ESF.

Demand for Environmental Stewardship Fund investments hugely exceeds funding availability. Senator Killion’s pending amendment takes a small but important step in boosting ESF’s ability to fund projects in communities across the commonwealth.

Check out today’s Growing Greener Coalition letter to Pennsylvania Senators on this subject.

Why act today? Because the vote is expected today.

Why a pending amendment? It’s because the amendment hasn’t been formally introduced but is informally available. You can find its content here. (There’s another Killion amendment—officially published—with different content that’s not of consequence, which potentially could cause confusion for some.)

The Killion amendment also makes a few tweaks to the Environmental Stewardship Fund supported by the Coalition: one, ensuring that increased ESF investments channeled through DCNR go to both state parks and forests and community grants on a 50/50 basis; and two, providing a pathway to leverage untapped federal tax incentives and private philanthropy for farmland preservation while increasing funding levels for county programs (by allocating a small portion of ESF to privately initiated agricultural conservation easements).

Find your senator here.

Governor Wolf’s proposed 2019 state budget slashes $75.7 million this coming year from the Keystone Recreation, Park and Conservation Fund and the Environmental Stewardship Fund (Growing Greener) in order to pay for government operations. Click here to take action to stop this disaster in the making.