.Bethlehem is a virtue signaler that wants the entire world to know how environmentally conscious it is. It's already adopted a meaningless "climate action plan" and now is considering an equally useless plastic straw ban. But these hypocrites thought nothing of clear-cutting the riparian buffer along a huge section of Saucon Creek along land the city owns near its sewage treatment plant on Shimersville Road. They knocked down everything, including trees. The trout in these waters have no problem with the smell of shit, but are unable to survive in warmer water.that is inevitable as a result of the lack of shade.
Had you or I done this, we'd be strung up.
Ironically, the Wildlands seeks grants to preserve these buffers.
15 comments:
Will Northampton County Virtue Signaler Zirinski pas some soothing to add to her resume? She may become as effective in the county as Freeman and Samuelson have become in their 50 years in Harrisburg.
3:38, It's not nice to speak of the dearly departed as you have. Those men haven't served for years.
Were the Bethlehem authorities required to get any and all the proper clearances that might have been necessary to do this work from PA DEP (and the Northampton County Conservation District if plant is in North. County portion of Bethlehem)? No riparian buffer required in this day and age of clean water regs?
Everyone does what they want. Along the way, those in power demanded the Little Lehigh's banks in Allentown's Parkway allow 6-foot weeds to grow at the stream's bank. It was essential for water integrity. that's what folks were told. That philosophy last years. Expensive signs were installed informing the public how important these buffers were to the water's integrity. Today, most of the Riparian buffer has been bulldozed and the running pathway gravel in some areas is now inches from the stream's edge. In heavy rainstorms like this week's, the gravel is carried into the Little Lehigh.
Didn't the City of Bedlam do a reforestation project at their reservoir some time ago that caught the ire of the EPA and other environmental agencies. Why would they want to clear cut the Saucon creek along the shit plant?
Bethlehem is a joke when it comes to the environment. You are right, they did already adopt a meaningless "climate action plan".....meanwhile they allow 21 different garbage companies to each drive up the same roads everyday instead of going to one single hauler program. Those same 21 trucks not only spill excessive carbon into the air but the 21 heavy trucks do immense damage to the streets. I think they are the only city in the whole state that has such a dumb waste management program.
Riparian buffer zones in Allentown were actually a really good idea, it greatly increases the water quality, helps with runoff too. How can they clear cut and not even put a silt fence up? Where is Tara Zrinksi the eco warrior and the rest of her captain planet crew. This should be an easy win.
Anon 248, perhaps you don't realize that city street drain lines go straight into the creek, under the buffers. The buffers do nothing to improve water quality, it was an administrative $$ grab under the guise of improving things.
Suggest you read Mike Molovinsky's blog, he has done a tremendous job covering this topic.
Sadly, as with most stories in our world one must always "follow the money." Unfortunately, a number of the "environmental improvements" and "climate control" measures are fattening the pockets of a few. And if one tries to point this out the rabid mobs, under the cloak of environmental actions, are whipped into a frenzy and drown out all other views.
Yo BO, the underground grapevine has discovered that Your county council buddy Zorroinski was at it again. Last weekend the county had a festival at LM Park. She had her solar business tent up at a county festival that taxpayers paid for. What about those balls?
If she paid as a vendor or followed the rules that applied to everyone else, I have no problem. If she did not, I have a big problem. Will find out.
This is really terrible, but the biggest threat to the creek's water quality is probably the SVCC golf course, which includes a much longer stretch of the stream with negligible riparian buffers where there are any at all. Golf courses also usually dump a bunch of fertilizers and pesticides on their greens which then run right into the stream. And all of that is further upstream, so the change in water temperature and quality affects all the downstream portions of the stream. Because the stream near the wastewater plant is so close to the Lehigh River, which already has pretty warm water at that point, the effects of this clearing are bad, but not as bad as if they occurred further upstream.
The trees were removed to PROTECT the river, as trees would fall over they would destroy the berm , if the river compromised the berm you would have waste mixing with the clean water.
The tree roots keep the berm from eroding, as do the rest of the vegetation there. Those trees have been there for 40 plus years. Silt fences werent use nor any other remedial measures that would be required.
11:41, this sounds like shoddy engineering at best. There is no way a single fallen tree should be able to compromise the containment of untreated wastewater.
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