Valley Creek Sewer Break

[Stagger_Lee]

EP wrote:

Same report says the Brown trout are spawning now. Guess they mean that the eggs are hatching now which is true.

EP .. u think the creek makes it out ok?

 

[englishprof]

I think it will be fine. The sections we fish will not be impacted at all. I rarely, if ever, go near the Park.

 

[marcq]

its at the bottom of the river probably a half a mile down stream from where people who fish there actually fish. its going to be fine. the skuke has seen worse to so not worried one bit.

 

[afishinado]

Just a general statement about infrastructure and sewage treatment in particular. I live in Chester County. Here, the number of new housing developments and overall population increases in the past decade or more is mind boggling. With new housing comes new revenue for the town, township and county in the form of property taxes.

Nearly all of the water treatment plants were built a long time ago. Many/most of these facility are operating way over capacity. The same can be said of the two lane roads leading to and from these mega-developments.

Anyway, the townships, towns and counties seem to love the new revenue but do not do enough to invest in infrastructure to support a higher population density.

Maybe the best thing we can all do is push the politicans and planners to spend a proportionate amount of the new tax revenues to update the infrastructure to accommodate the increase in demands on it before approving more housing developments.

Cross your fingers that Valley Creek and all it's critters and fish will survive yet another assault.

 

[Farley]

That would be a great thing to do but a political Hot Potato. The demands on infrastructure are very high and the nature of Chester county makes it difficult. Revamping roads and sewer/water systems are very costly. For example the North side of Valley Creek, near the park ,is zoned R2 (100,000 sq ft) so the density is low and it would be very expensive to put in sewers. That leaves in ground waste remediation which is not the best idea.

You are also faced with a big problem in some locals where very large developers can tie up small townships in litigation when they try to stop rezoning, ask for infrastructure improvements, or fight increased densities. It is a bit of a mismatch.

 

[Nuthin_Fancy]

Interesting that it took so long for a comment about the President within this thread. The bottom line is that the infrastructure of this great country has been crumbling for years and will continue to crumble. Politics aside, no one wants to foot the bill. I am of the same opinion of tomitrout and would support an equitable local tax increase to address local infrastructure issues.

 

[PennypackFlyer]

Part of the problem with increasing a tax for infrastructure - is once everyone hears there's money - everyone wants a peice of it - because everyone is in dire need.

Also - back in 1989 the taxes in San Fran area were increased to cover the cost of repairing the bridge after the earthquake. Guess What? The tax increase never went away even after the bridge was repaired.

 

[Stagger_Lee]

Some more news:

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20140320_Sewage_continues_to_gush_into_Valley_Creek_in_Valley_Forge_park.html

For several hours Tuesday morning, raw sewage gushed from the ruptured pipe into Valley Creek at a rate of about 5,000 gallons a minute. That's a lot of siht.

Then, when officials turned off the flow to the 30-inch sewer main, it caused sewage to back up at the closest pumping station, near Wilson Road in Chesterbrook, fouling even more of a prime trout stream in Valley Forge National Historical Park.

Overall, untreated waste flowed into Valley Creek for more than 30 hours, spilling several million gallons of sewage, officials estimated. A break occurred in roughly the same area six weeks ago, and in a different section of the same line two years ago.

Although there was no noticeable fish kill at the time, members of the Valley Forge Chapter of Trout Unlimited, who were walking the edges of the stream Wednesday, were worried.

They said it may take several days for fish to die, or dead fish may already be in deeper parts of the stream, hidden by the now-turbid water.

 

[PennypackFlyer]

At the rate of discharge it maybe difficult to tell which is floating siht and which is a bellied up fish. Now if we could only bring the asian carp in to eat it up then get rid of them.

Poor Valley Float, PA (Forge I meant to say)

I guess this gives new meaning to float trip?

 

[timmyt]

"Anyway, the townships, towns and counties seem to love the new revenue but do not do enough to invest in infrastructure to support a higher population density."

Which begs the age old question, WHERE did the money go? I think THAT is where we need to start. You can push as hard as you want but no politician will ever really ask that question.

 

[timmyt]

We could FIX EVERYTHING in this country as far as infrastructure goes if we'd quit giving away massive amounts of money to foreign countries and corporations. Its so crazy how much money we just GIVE away (either in straight foreign aid or corporate tax breaks) and get NOTHING for it.

 

[wildtrout2]

timmyt wrote:
We could FIX EVERYTHING in this country as far as infrastructure goes if we'd quit giving away massive amounts of money to foreign countries and corporations. Its so crazy how much money we just GIVE away (either in straight foreign aid or corporate tax breaks) and get NOTHING for it.

So very true. The amount of money that get's wasted by this country is mind boggling!

 

[PennypackFlyer]

no politician will give a correct answer

 

[pcray1231]

We could FIX EVERYTHING in this country as far as infrastructure goes if we'd quit giving away massive amounts of money to foreign countries and corporations. Its so crazy how much money we just GIVE away (either in straight foreign aid or corporate tax breaks) and get NOTHING for it.

I don't deny that we give way too much money away for too little. But, to be fair:

1. You're talking about vastly different funding sources. The money being given away is generally federal money. The money that goes to infrastructure is state and local.

2. No, the amount of foreign aid is a tiny fraction of what we spend on infrastructure.

Brief googling combined with back of envelope calculations:

- Approx 1% of federal budget is foreign aid.
- Federal budget is approx 15% of GDP.

Assuming the federal budget was fully funded by taxes (in actuality, it's not fully funded and only about half what is funded is funded by income taxes), that means that 0.15% of your income gets taken from you for foreign aid. Reality is probably less than half of that.

Now, % of spending that goes to infrastructure is MOSTLY, but not all, at the state and local level, but varies greatly. Lets not even examine local and state income taxes. Lets look ONLY at gas taxes, which go mostly to infrastructure.

Gas taxes and other fees in PA are currently about $.51/gallon. If you have a car that gets 25 mpg and drive 15000 miles/year, you pay about $300 a year in gas taxes alone.

So somebody making 80k gross per year doing the same pays:

$120/year in foreign aid.
$300/year in gas taxes.

Now, to that $300, add some % of your state taxes, some % of your local taxes, PLUS some % of your utility bills. For instance, sewage is generally included in your water bill. And that's just "hard" infrastructure like roads, bridges, railroad tracks, power transmission, water & sewage, pipelines. Doesn't include things like education, which could be looked at as "infrastructure" (and for that, check your property taxes and compare to the above numbers!!!!, I pay about $6k in school taxes)

I'd guestimate we put more than 20 times as much money into infrastructure as we do into foreign aid, and that's being conservative on what you define as "infrastructure". Sorry if it doesn't fit the narrative you want to rant about.

 

[pcray1231]

We also have the 2nd highest corporate tax rate in the world, and it's a long way to #3.

Yes, there are then a bunch of tax deductions, or "loopholes" if you like that term better, that make it so corporations typically pay far less than the actual rate. But if you use "effective tax rate", i.e. what is actually paid in the end, we go from being highest to middle of the pack in the western world. Not lowest. Eastern Europe is generally lowest. Germany Austria, and Poland are the 3 lowest. Australia, U.K., and France are the 3 highest.

FWIW, I do support gettting rid of many of the deductions, and in turn lowering the corporate tax rate. i.e. keeping about the same overall effective rate, but evening it up across industries. It would give the government less leeway over our economy, which you can view as good or bad.

Many R's and President Obama are also in support of this but nobody has pushed it, mostly because of lobbying. The most powerful lobbying groups are the ones benefitting the most from the current set up, and those without lobbying power are the industries that are getting screwed. IMO, an adjustment would merely even the playing field and allow market forces more control over lobbying forces. It'd increase the competiveness of smaller companies while decreasing that of the giants, who currently have the most resources to lobby for, find, and exploit deductions.

 

[foxtrapper1972]

We have the money and resources just not the will. Money here money there....local/ federal who cares? Is the United States the richest country in the world? I think we definitely have the most billionaires and extremely rich. Interesting to see this thread on a trout fishing forum.

 

[johnstevens5462]

It is not that easy as just get money and build new infrastructure. You need a place to put it.

Therein lies the problem, the existing right-of-ways for utilities are filled to capacity. Sewer lines, stormwater lines, telephone lines, cable lines, water lines, gas lines, electrical lines, etc., are all jammed in and there simply isn't sufficient room to put in a new one. You can't just rip the old one out to make room for the new one.

So the process for getting right-of-way is by eminent domain and I'm sure most of the folks who are complaining that new infrastructure is needed would be among the first to complain and fight it if the town or county or utility wanted to get a utility easement through their property to put in new infrastructure.

Installing new infrastructure is a long and expensive legal process that creates political nightmares.

 

[timmyt]

"'I'd guestimate we put more than 20 times as much money into infrastructure as we do into foreign aid, and that's being conservative on what you define as "infrastructure". Sorry if it doesn't fit the narrative you want to rant about."

Guesstimate is putting it lightly, a LOT of assumptions that help drive the narrative you clearly want to rant about in that post. All i was trying to do was spur discussion about the way we spend money. Perhaps i didnt choose my words wisely when i said ALL but other than that i stand by my comment. Our money is better spent here on things that benefit us instead of being given away to other countries

 

[PennypackFlyer]

Fox Trapper: Quwait I believe is richer.

 

[SurfCowboyXX]

Pennypack-Kuwait is nowhere near as wealthy as the US. Not even close. Nowhere else is as wealthy, period. Not even close. And yet, our bridges are falling, we can't take care of our veterans, and we can't afford to feed poor kids lunch at school. We can, however, afford to give hundreds of billions of dollars to the banks and energy companies. It is what it is. We would rather see the rich make out at the expense of the working class in the US now. Embrace the horror. Either get rich, or get out.