DavidFin wrote:
DEP told me to go screw and that I'm lucky they left stumps behind.... When I asked them if crews are supposed to post permits around the work site, the person literally shuffled papers and said, "Uh.." repeatedly until I said forget it.
This is not over as far as I'm concerned.
Did they actually say "go screw?" If not, what did they say?
There is no US or PA law prohibiting cutting trees down along streams. It's harmful to streams. But there is no law against it.
There are laws against channel alteration. And there are laws regarding erosion and sedimentation, i.e. if there was a lot of soil disturbance and a lot of mud washed into the creek, and they did not take the right measures (silt fencing etc.) to try to prevent that.
If those were violated, then there is a legal issue.
But if nothing was done other than cutting of vegetation, then no law was violated.
It might be worth contacting the County Conservation district. They might be willing to talk to the developers and convince them into doing the right thing, i.e. creating a riparian buffer, planting trees and shrubs etc.
That may sound like a long shot, but I know of a case where that worked. Many people are not so much deliberately callous about streams, but just completely unaware about stream care.
