Dep stealing public water for Gas industry

[Brownout]

Act faster than everyone thinks is the name of the game.

Dep stealing water

 

[pcray1231]

Frankly, I'd rather the DEP have control than a bunch of different landowners acting separately. At least then there's some hope of controlling how much comes from each waterway.

 

[Maurice]

I thought the water resources were property of the Commonwealth and its residents and governed by the PF&BC.

You know the land and stream bed is owned by the riparian landowners but the water is the property of the Commonwealth.

And what is to say that this 1.44 million gals a day are not being taken from "right of way" at a township bridge or community owned property? Notice they didn't get into who owns the land the water is being taken from.

If the riparian landowners owned the water resources, that would destroy the ability to float {edit} non-{edit} navigable rivers.

just sayin.....

 

[pcray1231]

You know the land and stream bed is owned by the riparian landowners but the water is the property of the Commonwealth.

Well, thats true in non-navigable waterways. In navigable waterways, the commonweaalth owns the stream bed as well.

The only example given is RedBank Creek. That is likely a navigable waterway, but the issue has never been decided in court. It has been declared a public highway from the mouth up to the "second or great fork." Whether that refers to the confluence of sandy lick creek, or little sandy, I'm not sure. Either way, the courts have refused to divide up streams piecemeal, a river navigable in part is navigable in its entirety. It was used first to transport timber from a sawmill upstream. They were transported on rafts or platforms. Iron was also transported, and done so via a combination of methods, including in certain stretches floating it on rafts. Later, the Redbank Navigation Company was started which improved parts of the stream for navigation, and levied tolls on boats which used it to transport goods, but my source doesn't go into detail about what the boats actually carried.

So yeah, of course the water is public property, but likely so is the riverbed.

 

[Maurice]

Good point pcray.....I edited my post to reflect non nav...thats what I meant.

That was the point.....but the article indicates that it belongs to the riparian landowner in the Ohio drainage and it belongs or is regulated by the respective commissions in the Deleware and Susquehanna basins.

 

[pcray1231]

Well, my uneducated opinion is that the water is owned by the commonwealth, and the DEP does have the authority to permit or deny water withdrawal permits.

Of course, the trucks cannot trespass on private land without landowner permission. And in the case of non-navigable waterways, the streambed and streambanks are private land. So they'd have to get it from a right of way, park, national forest, state forest, etc., somewhere where the government owns the streambed. In navigable waterways, everything up to the high water mark is public, including the streambed. So there, they just have to access the water legally, but once to the streambank they can go up or down.

All in all, I think this is a poorly thought out defense by the Allegheny Defense Project. They are merely trying to oppose the gas industry anywhere they see a chance, and I understand that motive (may not agree, but understand). But I think they're endangering themselves here. If they actually succeeded in this objection, then you have taken the right to monitor water withdrawals away from the DEP or any central authority whatsoever, and made it a free for all among landowners looking to get money. I don't know whether the DEP is currently being stringent enough on the withdrawals as far as minimum flow rates and such. But at least, if it becomes a major problem, they have the ability to get more stringent. You don't want to lose that card.

 

[Brownout]

You two are talkin a lotta sense. I have to read their longer letter and dig around the laws. They are claiming that in the East the Delaware and Susquehanna Commission have the authority to permit.

Pcray, didn't local conservation districts get eliminated when Dep cut employees? Take money from an extraction tax and train people locally to monitor their own water supplies. What is the lost revenue already, up near 70 million or something?

 

[reds]

the local conservation districts were eliminated from the e and s part of well permitting and still have limited power in that arena, I do not believe they ever played a role in water withdrawals. I agree with pcray on this that this was poorly thought out by adp, probably more of a publicity stunt than anything. i trust the dep regulating withdrawals a lot more than the individual landowners. Additionally, they are regulating them in the same way as the srbc, taking a percentage of the low flow over a ten year time frame.