What's New
After months of delay--and then waiting until the waning days of the calendar year--the Pennsylvania General Assembly finally reauthorized funding for Pennsylvania's cornerstone toxic cleanup program, the Hazardous Sites Cleanup Fund Act (HSCA).
By passing SB1100, the legislature guaranteed $18 million towards HSCA for the remainder of the fiscal year (through 7/1/2008), and then $40 million annually to the program through 2011.
Sadly, the legislature was unable to come up with a long-term solution to HSCA's funding problems that will guarantee dedicated and sustainable funding to the program beyond 2011, forcing the public, environmental advocates and the General Assembly to revisit this issue in the future.
To look up sites in your community, click here.
How You Can Help
Email your state legislators. Thank them for averting catastrophe for the HSCA program by reauthorizing short-term funding. At the same time, ask them to come up with a long-term dedicated funding source for HSCA in the near future.
Brief Summary
Pennsylvania’s extensive industrial history has left a legacy of toxic pollution that threatens our environment and public health. This includes more than 1,000 abandoned hazardous waste sites found across the state. These sites scar our landscape, drag down our local economies, endanger the health of local communities and threaten our environment.
That’s because many of the pollutants found at these toxic dumpsites are known to cause cancer, birth defects or other health problems. Unfortunately, until these hazardous waste sites are cleaned up the toxic chemicals will continue to leach into our soil and groundwater, and evaporate into the air and into our environment.
Pennsylvania’s Hazardous Sites Cleanup Fund (HSCA) has been the state’s primary method for cleaning up these dumpsites—and it has been hugely successful. To date, the Hazardous Sites Cleanup Fund has been able to clean up hundreds of contaminated dumpsites and created and/or retained thousands of jobs.
The Hazardous Sites Cleanup Fund was set to expire this fall. Luckily our legislators in Harrisburg acted in a nick of time and passed a short-term funding solution to make sure that HSCA is funded for the remainder of the fiscal year and through 2011. But more must be done--we need to guarantee that HSCA has the necessary long-term and dedicated funding to clean up our toxic dumpsites for years to come, not just the upcoming months.
Click here to email your elected officials. Thank them for coming up with a short-term funding solution for HSCA, but ask them to work hard in the upcoming months to pass a long-term, dedicated funding source for this important program so that we can keep cleaning up the toxic dumpsites that scar Pennsylvania.
