Commission Suggests Charging for River Water
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
11 March 2012
By Bob Frye
You can lead a horse to water, but can you make him pay for it?
That's something the executive director of the Pennsylvania Fish
and Boat Commission figuratively is asking.
While delivering the commission's annual report to the House of
Representatives Game and Fisheries Committee at the state Capital
in Harrisburg, John Arway suggested that lawmakers should start
charging industry for the water it takes from the state's rivers
and streams.
Right now, that's not happening.
The Susquehanna River Basin Commission charges industry about 27
cents per 1,000 gallons of water from that river, or just enough
to replace what's removed; the Delaware River Basin Commission
charges about 8 cents per 1,000 gallons, Arway said. No one
regulates who takes water out of the Ohio River drainage, nor does
anyone pay to replace it.
The commission itself makes a little money by selling water. It's
getting $5 per 1,000 gallons taken from Donegal Lake in
Westmoreland County. The water is being purchased by a Marcellus
Shale deep-well driller.
But beyond that, the state is letting industry take its water for
free. That's the way things have been for a long time, Arway
added.
"Shallow-well gas drillers in the Allegheny National Forest have
been pulling all of the water for their operations from our rivers
for decades without paying a penny for it. Farmers do the same,"
Arway said. "Anyone with a tanker truck can pull up to our water
and take what they want without the commonwealth getting a thing
for it."
That's not the way things work elsewhere, he said. In the West --
where water is a scarce commodity -- industry routinely pays for
water, he said. If Pennsylvania started doing the same, it could
reap tens of millions of dollars in benefits, if not more.
Lawmakers on the committee expressed some interested in the idea,
though it's clear a lot of specifics would have to be worked out.
Rep. John Evans, the Crawford County Republican who serves as
majority chairman of the committee, asked how money generated from
selling water should be allocated. His first impression seemed to
be that Arway was asking for the commission to get all of the
money.
"Shouldn't the commonwealth receive the funds because the water
belongs to it?" Evans asked.
That is indeed the case, Arway said. He said he would expect that
lawmakers would decide how to allocate that money, with some going
to townships for repair of bridges over streams and rivers, some
going to water treatment facilities -- and some going to the Fish
and Boat Commission, because anglers and boaters use the waterways
from which the water is being taken.
Exactly who should get money and in what proportion is something
the Legislative Budget and Finance Committee could determine, he
suggested.
"It's unlimited, how this could be constructed," Arway said.
Whether there's any interest in the idea may become clear soon.
Arway said he will be "going on the road" to talk about the idea
with constituents -- from sportsmen to lawmakers -- in the near
future.
"It's a message we want to get out and see how it resonates,"
Arway said.
Bob Frye can be reached at bfrye@tribweb.com or 724-838-5148.