News Release

PACD Supports Transportation Funding

Harrisburg, PA-The Pennsylvania Association of Conservation Districts, Inc. (PACD) supports enhanced transportation funding to provide additional funds to reduce pollution from unpaved roadways.

Pennsylvania has more than 17,000 miles of unpaved roads owned by local municipalities and government agencies. Many of these roads, some hundreds of years old, are economically valued. Used to transport products, they provide low-cost, efficient, and essential routes through the backbone of mostly rural Pennsylvania. Dirt and gravel roads serve the state's leading industries of agriculture, tourism, forestry and mining while being more economically feasible to maintain than paved roads.

Sections of these unpaved roads are also a frequent and consistent source of sediment runoff and dust pollution. In fact, the largest water pollutant by volume in Pennsylvania is sediment (dirt) from a variety of sources including unpaved roadways. When it rains in a problem area, sediment from the road runs directly into a body of water, usually a stream. This sediment gets caught in fish gills, is detrimental to fish spawning and changes the natural flow of the stream.

Funds are allocated to counties to control this pollution through the Pennsylvania State Conservation Commission's Dirt and Gravel Road Pollution Prevention Program which provides training and funding to reduce stream pollution originating from dirt and gravel roads using "environmentally sound" maintenance. The program apportions $4 million annually to County Conservation Districts who administer the program at the local level.

Benefits of correcting these problems include stabilizing unpaved roadways, preserving additional fishing and recreational opportunities, protecting drinking water supplies and preserving economical transportation routes. Sixty-five of Pennsylvania's 67 counties receive funds from the program. Since 1998, 935 projects have been completed. However, at the current level of funding it would take 46 years to address the 11,300 sites that have currently been identified as problem areas that are causing erosion and allowing sediment to enter waterways. The PACD is working to secure enhanced transportation funding to address these sites and to keep these roads maintained in an environmentally safe manner to prevent pollution from entering Pennsylvania's waterways.

PACD is a private, non-profit organization that supports, enhances, and promotes Pennsylvania's Conservation Districts and their activities including the Dirt and Gravel Road Pollution Prevention Program. For more information on PACD visit www.pacd.org.

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