Environment of Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania is a northeastern commonwealth located in the United States of America. It was originally one of the 13 original colonies. Pennsylvania is home to a population of 12,802,503 individuals and various different types of environments.^[1] Pennsylvania is known for its many hills, plateaus, mountains, and valleys. In fact, Pennsylvania is 50% forest land with the only lowlands located in the southeast.^[2]

Mountains

Blue Knob Mountain in the Quaker Valley of Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania has many different mountain ranges with the highest point being at 3,213 ft on Mt. Davis.^[3] The main mountain ranges include the Appalachian, Allegheny, and Pocono Mountains.^[4] The Appalachian Mountain Range runs throughout Pennsylvania and seventeen other states, creating the largest mountain range in Pennsylvania. The Allegheny Mountain Range connects to the Appalachian mountains in west and central Pennsylvania. The Pocono Mountain Range runs throughout northeastern Pennsylvania. The Allegheny and Pocono mountains are the two largest subranges in Pennsylvania. Other mountain ranges in Pennsylvania include the Bear Pond Mountains, the Blue Ridge Mountains, the Conewago Mountains, Music Mountains, Town Hill Mountain Range, and the Endless Mountains.^[5] To find a full list of mountains in Pennsylvania look at Category:Mountain ranges of Pennsylvania.

Susquehanna River

Rivers

Pennsylvania also has more significant waterways than any other US state.^[6] In fact, Pennsylvania has more than 83,000 miles of rivers, creeks, and streams.^[7] The main waterways are the Delaware River, Allegheny River, Ohio River, Monongahela River, and the Susquehanna River. Every Pennsylvania river is categorized into five classifications by the Pennsylvania Scenic Rivers.^[8] The classifications are wild, scenic, pastoral, recreational, or modified recreational. Any individual river can have more then one classification, but they all have at least one. For a full list of river go to List of rivers of Pennsylvania.

Landfills in Pennsylvania

Although Pennsylvania has many beautiful landscapes and breathtaking views it also contains a vast amount of landfills. In total, Pennsylvania has 45 municipal waste landfills, 3 construction/demolition waste landfills, 4 residual waste landfills, and 6 resource recovery/waste to energy landfills.^[9] Below is a table of the 45 municipal landfills and their daily volume of trash entering the landfills daily.^[10] These landfills are not only holding the trash of the citizens of Pennsylvania, but they also hold the trash of other states. Pennsylvania is one of the main states that imports waste. Much of Pennsylvania's waste comes from neighboring states such as New Jersey and New York.^[11] In fact, Pennsylvania has more trash per person at 34.5 tons of trash per person than every other sate except Nevada in 2016. However, this process of importing waste is very lucrative for the Pennsylvania counties by providing labor market opportunities and helps increase the municipality's budgets by fees paid by these exporting states.^[12] For example, Throop, Pennsylvania $6 million budget is made up of $4 million from the host feels paid from importing other state's waste.^[13]

Recycling in Pennsylvania

One way to reduce the amount of waste going to the Pennsylvania landfills is to have a recycling campaign. Recycling statewide began with the instatement of the Municipal Waste Planning Recycling and Waste Reduction Act, also known as Act 101 in July 1988.^[14] Act 101 at this time had four major goals:^[15]

1. Recycle 25% of PA's solid waste stream by January 1997
2. Reduce waste going to landfills
3. Increase the use of products that are recyclable or made from recycled material
4. Educate each person in the commonwealth as to the value of recycling and waste reduction

These plans were going to be implemented throughout several phases within each municipality over the following years. A county's responsibilities were to manage the muncipilaties recycling efforts. In efforts to manage the municipalities the county would have to have a solid waste plan in place by March 1991, which would be revised every 3 years, and to submit annual reports to the state based on the efforts of each municipality's recycling efforts.^[16] These annual reports would then be combined to create a statewide report of its recycling efforts and the benefits gained by doing so.^[17] This act was funded by the Recycling Fund which created a $2-per-ton fee on all waste entering the landfills known as the recycling fee.^[18] In addition to the Recycling Fund they also received other grants such as the household hazardous Waste Collection and Disposal Grants, Host Municipality Inspector Grants, and Independent Permit Application Review Grants.^[19]

Act 101 in its essence is still in place today for all municipalities and has only been revised twice to help strengthen and grow the program.^[20] The most recent change to Act 101 happened in May 2010 which is the extension of the collection of the recycling fee of $2-per-ton to 2020. Other changes to Act 101 are Act 140 which established requirement for the spending of grants over 10,000 given to communities by Act 101.^[21] Act 140 also gave municipalities requirements such as:

• "All residents must be required by ordinance to have waste and recycling services
• Must have an implemented residential curbside recycling program
• Must facilitate a commercial recycling program
• Must provide semi-annual residential and commercial recycling education
• Enforcement program
• Special Materials Program- for the collection of special waste such as tires, white goods, HHW, etc. Must have provision for or participate in county, multi-municipal, or private sector collection efforts
• Anti-Littering Program-through practice and/or education; sponsor, facilitate, or support programs that address anti-littering and illegal dumping
• Recycling Coordinator-just have a designated person or entity responsible for recycling data collection and reporting"^[22]

The most recent results of these acts are as followed:

• In 2014, Pennsylvania recycled over 16.84 million tons of resources with benefits of having 15.88 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions removed from the air.^[23]
• In 2013, Pennsylvania recycled over 6.12 million tons of resources with benefits of having 7.5 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions from the air.^[24]
• In 2012, Pennsylvania recycled over 8.5 million tons of resources.^[25]

EcoTourism in Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania's beautiful landscapes can be seen through its many national parks. In fact, Pennsylvania has 19 National Parks throughout the state. However, Pennsylvania has an additional 9 park sites that are either affiliated or managed by the National Park Service.^[26] This allows for a number of different avenues to bring in revenue throughout the parks within Pennsylvania that receive 9,935,361 individuals visiting them each year. These visitors create an overall economic benefit of $453,100,000 from tourism at these sites.^[27] This economic benefit can be the result of entrance fees, food purchases, and souveniors. Below is a table of the 19 National State Parks in Pennsylvania and their yearly operation costs and personal costs from the 2017 fiscal year. These operating costs are what are deducted from the parks revenue to find the total profit of each park. These operations costs include things such as maintenance of the parks and wages for park workers. The yearly personal costs are the costs of entrance for the parks. In addition, the table includes the yearly visitation of the parks to show the number of visitors that went through during the 2014 year. To begin to see a portion of the revenue made by these parks is the revenue made by entrance fees. To find this portion of the revenue, multiply the yearly visitation and the yearly personal costs. This will result in only one small portion of the yearly revenue that these parks produce.

National State Parks in PA	Location in PA	Yearly Operation Costs (Hundreds)[28]	Yearly Visitation[29]	Yearly Personal Costs[30]
Allegheny Portage Railroad National Historic Site	Gallitzin, PA	2,115	148,280	Free to Public
Appalachian National Scenic Trail(Appalachian Trail)	Pen Mar, PA to Delaware Water Gap	1,586	N/A	Free to Public
Chesapeake Bay Gateways Network		9,577	4,925,582	Free to Public
Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area	Bushkill, PA *	9,832	4,314,085	Cars: $7.00 Bikes: $1.00 Walking:$1.00
Edgar Allan Poe National Historic Site	Philadelphia, PA	397	13,128	Free to Public
Eisenhower National Historic Site	Gettysburg, PA	1,123	54,668	Kids: $5.00 Adults: $7.50
First State National Historical Park	Chaddsford, PA	717	N/A	Free to Public
Flight 93 National Memorial	Schanksville, PA	1,588	262,441	Free to Public
Fort Necessity National Battlefield	Farmington, PA	1,615	199,837	Free to Public
Friendship Hill National Historic Site	Point Marion, PA	579	32,864	Free to Public
Gettysburg National Military Park	Gettysburg, PA	7,004	1,003,581	Free to Public
Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site	Elverson, PA	1,437	44,929	Free to Public
Independence National Historical Park	Philadelphia, PA	23, 876	3,552,672	Free to Public
Johnstown Flood National Memorial	South Fork, PA	821	139,603	Free to Public
Potomac Heritage National Scenic Trail	Dunbar, PA	406	N/A	Free to Public
Steamtown National Historic Site	Scranton, PA	5,709	81,802	Entrance Fee: $7.00 Train Ride:$5.00
Thaddeus Kosciuszko National Memorial	Philadelphia, PA	166	1,608	Free to Public
Upper Delaware Scenic and Recreational River	Pike and Wayne, PA	N/A	228,284	Free to Public
Valley Forge National Historic Park	Valley Forge, PA	6,396	1,897,029	Free to Public

Since the affiliated and parks managed by the National Park Service do not have use the National Park Service's budget therefore they were not reported in the budget justification of the 2017 fiscal year. Hence, we do not have their operation costs, but we do still have the yearly personal costs.

Affiliated or Managed by National Park Service within PA	Location in PA	Yearly Personal Costs
Captain John Smith Chesapeake National Historic Trail		Free to Public
Delaware and Lehigh National Heritage Corridor	Easton, PA	Free to Public
Gloria Dei Church National Historic Site	Philadelphia, PA	Free to Public
Lower Delaware National Wild and Scenic River		Free to Public
North Country National Scenic Trail	Baker, PA	Free to Public
Oil Region National Heritage Area	Oil City, PA	Free to Public
Rivers of Steel National Heritage Area	Homestead, PA	Free to Members $1 for Kids $3 for Adults
Schuylkill River Valley	Pottstown, PA	Free to Public
Washington-Rochambeau Revolutionary Route National Historic Trail		Free to Public

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References