Legislative
Update
Nockamixon’s
Groundwater Ordinance Explained
by Dr. Robert
Stanfield, BNT JGMC
Dr. Stephen Donovan,
Nockamixon EAC and BNT JGMC
This ordinance is being introduced to better protect our groundwater. As our
understanding of the need for protection of our groundwater improves, we must
insure that an adequate supply of safe, clean water continues to be available
to our residents through a rational approach. The realization that water is a
limited valuable resource, and not a waste product to be disposed of, must now
be reflected in our legislation for managing it.
We currently have two ordinances that touch directly on this issue: the Act 537
Sewage Facilities ordinance, and the Act 167 Stormwater Management ordinance.
The Act 537 ordinance was the boilerplate version, offered for adoption in the
early 1980s. That act also contained the mandate that townships have a modern
sewage facility ordinance. Yet, our ordinance remains unchanged, in spite of a
better understanding of our natural resources problems, and of a greatly
increased demand for them.
As this Act is more than 25 years old, it would be hard to argue that it is
still modern; thus it should be modernized as a requirement of Act 537. The
process of modernizing the Sewage Facilities ordinance has been initiated. It
is not a trivial task to be undertaken lightly, and there are fears about
opening it up for modernization. The major fear is that it will mean
institution of a municipal sewerage system that is incompatible with the
expressed desire of residents to maintain Nockamixon’s rural character.
Both the town engineer and our environmental consultant have pointed out that
yes, we do need to mention in a modern Act the possibility of sewage treatment
plants, but we can also prioritize the various options and use language to
justify and defend those choices. Avoiding mention of treatment plants in our
current Act 537 in no way protects us from having them imposed on us. Should
that occur, we may lose the ability to exercise much choice in the matter.
The time to act is now. This proposed groundwater ordinance can stand on its
own or, in the future, be rolled into any modernizations of the 167 and 537
plans, if and when they occur. This groundwater ordinance, in conjunction with
the 167 and the 537 plans, will give us layers of protection for an immediate
response to an imminent need.
The basic philosophy of this ordinance is that groundwater in our aquifer is a
valuable resource that is limited in our township, due to the nature of our
geology. Everyone in this township depends on obtaining water from wells. It is
our obligation to protect both the purity and the supply of groundwater, now
and into the future.
It is also the philosophy of this ordinance that the result of any development
should not cause the availability and purity of groundwater to be diminished
from what was present pre-development. It is more than possible that
post-development, the rate of infiltration of clean water to the aquifer could
be maintained or even improved, but it requires very careful planning.
There are a number of tools available for us to reach this goal. Among them are
the Pennsylvania Stormwater Best Management Practices (BMP) Manual (newly
revised, draft version available at http://www.dep.state.pa.us/dep/subject/advcoun/stormwater/stormwatercomm.htm)
and that of
These BMP manuals place no legal obligation on the townships. Rather, they are
a source of good information and techniques to be incorporated into the
township’s ordinances as each township chooses, based on the unique needs
and wants of that particular township.
Some of the verbiage for this proposed ordinance has been borrowed directly
from Tinicum’s groundwater ordinance, which stood the test of legal
challenge in court (see Rushton vs. Tinicum circa 2000) and was upheld on
appeal. The case was won based on the right of the township to protect the
health, safety and welfare of its residents, using resource-based arguments.
Minimum lot size is one of the hotly contested issues in debates about this
ordinance. Determination of what will be legally considered minimum lot size
really reflects the amount of risk one is comfortable taking on wells going dry
during droughts. Currently, the benchmark sets the level of risk at when we
might expect to experience wells going dry during the worst drought in fifty
years.
Our hydrogeologist consultant, Matthew Mulhall, told us that planning for a
50-year drought is conservative. When planning for flood, we often plan for the
100-year flood, so planning for a 50-year drought is more than reasonable.
Relaxing the period to less than 50 years will result in extensive problems
when a drought actually occurs.
The drought of the 1960s was five years long. Lately, we have been facing
serious problems with wells even during short-term droughts like that of the
summer of 1999 and the 2001-02 one-year drought. We disregard these warnings at
our own peril. If we, as a community, really believe that 50 years is too
conservative and overly restrictive, we can base the minimum lot size on some
other number we agree would represent when we might expect wells go dry, say,
on average every 25 years, 10 years or whatever. The fact remains that the
smaller the lot size, the more dwellings will be allowed per acre to put
pressure on the aquifer, so the more likely we are to see wells go dry.
We are not comfortable arbitrarily setting this number at the 50-year drought.
The discomfort stems not from this being an innately inappropriate number, but
from the fact that there are real implications of danger in certain types of
development being allowed in certain areas hobbled by a limited water supply.
Therefore, we advocate that this number should be determined by a consensus in
the township, based on the mandate to carry out sustainable development using
resource-based management techniques. We must insure that an adequate supply of
clean water continues to be available to our residents through a rational
approach.
In addition, there will be a standardized set of well testing parameters that
could form the basis of a regional database of wells for our area. This well
testing spreadsheet could also be utilized by neighboring townships for
consistency and information sharing.
In the end, we are not Democrats or Republicans, Conservatives or Liberals. We
are simply citizens of
With knowledge comes responsibility, and we have come to realize we cannot
continue as we have without irreversible, disastrous consequences. We feel it
is our responsibility to bring this information to the attention of the
township. It is now the townships’ responsibility to use this information
to plan as best we can to foster sustainable development.
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The Gallows Run Watershed Association (GRWA) is an independent non-profit
organization dedicated to protecting the quality of the natural resources of
the Gallows Run Watershed. Learn more at http://www.grwabucks.org.