Environmental protection suffers deep state budget cuts

The Pennsylvania Constitution establishes a right to clean air, pure water and the preservation of the environment, but the agencies charged with protecting that right saw one of the biggest cuts to their programs in the state's history Oct. 9.

The state budget reduces funding to the Department of Environmental Protection by 30 percent - to funding levels last seen 13 years ago. The Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, which operates the state parks and forests, was cut by 23 percent.

Department managers for the agencies are just beginning to account for what will be lost.

Spokeswomen for DEP and DCNR said they do not yet know how many or which programs or employees will have to be cut from their agencies. But outside environmental groups, who say they fear the budget will mean the "collapse of environmental oversight" in the state, are estimating as many as 400 DEP employees and 160 DCNR employees will have to be laid off.

"We're concerned about whether DCNR and DEP are really going to be able to do their jobs with the significant percentage cut to their budgets," Donald Welsh, president and CEO of the Pennsylvania Environmental Council, said.

Both DEP and DCNR will see substantial reductions in budget line items that are used to fund staff positions. The Chesapeake Bay Foundation, a nonprofit environmental group, said the new state budget reduces funding for DEP personnel by $21.1 million.

State Rep. Gregory Vitali, D-166, Havertown, who fought against the cuts prior to the budget's passage, said he learned from DEP officials that as many as 400 DEP employees will lose their jobs. Department managers are in the process of prioritizing

staff positions, with enforcement personnel as the most important, permitting personnel in the middle, and information and outreach personnel at the bottom, he said.

DEP spokeswoman Teresa Candori said she cannot comment on the numbers cited by Vitali, but said no decisions about staffing have been made.

"We're still going over every line item, every program, and basically trying to determine the impact," she said.

The department recently doubled the size of its oil and gas staff to keep up with the expansion of natural gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale formation - paid for, in part, by an increase in permit fees - and the budget relies on $60 million worth of additional natural gas leasing and production in state forests. But Candori said she could not say for certain that the oil and gas staff will be immune from cuts.

The fate of some programs has been determined, because their budget line items were eliminated or reduced.

A grant program that allows municipalities to improve their drinking water or wastewater treatment systems, which was budgeted at $11.7 million last year, has been eliminated. That program is considered supplemental to the Pennvest sewer and drinking water infrastructure program, which saw an increase of $144 million this year because of federal stimulus funds.

Funding has been reduced for black fly and West Nile virus spraying programs, which already have been curtailed this year.

"We're still going to spray for black fly, we're just going to start later and finish earlier," Candori said. "And we're still going to spray for West Nile, but we've eliminated those counties where we have seen the incidence of the virus almost gone."

Funding also has been eliminated to a storm-water management program and a financing program that allows homeowners and small businesses to make energy efficiency improvements. It has been reduced in flood control programs, the county conservation districts, and the river basin and Chesapeake Bay commissions.

At DCNR, cuts will primarily affect state park and forest operations and pest management programs, but the agency has not determined which parks will be affected.

"We are certainly evaluating and analyzing things, and we have seen some significant reductions, so we're going to have to move forward and figure that all out," spokeswoman Christina Novak said.

In May, when Senate Republicans proposed cutting $26 million from the amount DCNR had been budgeted in 2008, acting Secretary John Quigley said the cuts would force the agency to close 35 of the 117 state parks and 1,000 miles of state forest roads. At that point Archbald Pothole in Archbald; Tobyhanna, Gouldsboro and Big Pocono in Monroe County; Prompton in Wayne County; Salt Springs in Susquehanna County; and Mount Pisgah in Bradford County were on a list of 50 state parks that would be considered for closure.

The final budget, passed last Friday, cuts $28 million from the amount DCNR had been budgeted in 2008 - $2 million more than the "worst-case scenario" imagined in May.

Asked if the secretary's predictions about the impacts still hold true, Ms. Novak said "that's what we're trying to figure out."

Dustin Drew, the manager of Lackawanna, Salt Springs and Archbald Pothole state parks, said he has not heard anything concrete about how his parks will be impacted, but he had made changes to prepare for the cuts.

"Most of our seasonal employees took a cut in their time this fall," he said. "I think most parks ended up doing that, putting seasonal employees on leave without pay a little early."

At the regional Bureau of Forestry office in Scranton, assistant district forester Joe Ulozas said the 13 full-time and 27 part-time employees there had not yet heard how the budget would affect their jobs.

They had already been operating under a "bare bones" budget, he said: no overtime, only essential purchases, and hope that mother nature cooperates so they will not need a very large pest management spray program next year.

"If someone's going to request a Smokey the Bear appearance on a Saturday afternoon, we're going to have to turn them down or have them try to schedule it during the week," he said.

Emergency responses will remain a priority, he said. "For fire season, we're going to go out and get the job done."

Contact the writer: llegere@timesshamrock.com