Pennsylvania Private Well Construction Standards HB 48, HB 81 and Senate Bill 1461
House Bill 343 and Senate Bill 1461 both died in the Senate Environmental Resources and Energy Committee at the end of last year’s legislative session. In January 2015, Representatives Harper and Godshall and Senator Vance re-introduced the legislation that died in the Senate Committee last session.
What can you do to support this re-introduced legislation? Call your Representative and call your Senator and ask them to become co-sponsors of this legislation.
Representative Godshall introduced HB 48. To read his memo
Representative Harper introduced HB 81. To read her memo
Senator Vance will re-introduce SB 1461. To read her memo
When you call, to help you explain the reasons why Pennsylvania needs residential water well construction standards, I have prepared some talking points you could use when you talk to your Representative and your Senator. You could pick a few points that you feel the strongest about or that relate directly to you.
Why does Pennsylvania need standards for the proper construction of residential water wells?
1. 50% of private well owners drink water that fails at least 1 primary drinking water standard.
2. About 30% of private well owners fail one or more primary drinking water standards and a secondary drinking water standard.
3. Failing a drinking water standard means people and children can get sick.
4. Poorly constructed private wells adversely impact the individual families and the communities.
5. Since Groundwater and Surface Water are connected and about 60% percent of surface water was actually groundwater, this means contaminated private wells impacts surface water quality.
6.Poorly constructed private wells have facilitated groundwater contamination and threatened public water supplies.
7. We need private well construction standards and we need a program to assist private well owners to fix their existing wells.
8. We do not need new PADEP regulations or oversight on private well water usage, but we need a public private partnership to educate the community, help identify the problems, and help to fix these problems.
9. The Keystone Clean Water Team has been working on this effort since 1989. We want to be part of the solution.
10. This is a health and public safety issue.
When You send a comment to the legislators cited above please mention the Keystone Clean Water Team – http://www.pacleanwater.org.
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