Back in 1999, in the days when dinosaurs roamed the earth, a bill was introduced in the General Assembly by Rep. Camille “Bud” George, a colorful and sometimes bombastic lawmaker from Clearfield County.  At the time, George was serving as the Minority Chairman of the House Environmental Resources and Energy Committee, a panel he now chairs.

George, who was also an appointed member of the Pennsylvania Infrastructure Investment Board (PennVEST), had long argued that the low interest loans and grants that the board approved for drinking water, wastewater and storm water management projects had been tilted heavily toward larger systems, sometimes leaving smaller water authorities standing at the altar, unable to make upgrades or even keep up with clean water mandates.

George crafted a bill that would mandate a certain percentage of PennVEST dollars be set aside for smaller systems, serving fewer than 15,000 residents.  With the House being controlled by the GOP at the time, the bill went off to die quietly in the corner.

Fast forward a decade.

This morning, we perused a sobering story in the New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/08/business/energy-environment/08water.html?_r=1&hp proclaiming that the federal Safe Drinking Water Act is producing water that is anything but safe.  49 million Americans, the report found, have ingested contaminated water.  Contaminated with what, you ask?  Well, thank goodness it was only little, harmless things like raw sewage, arsenic, and uranium.

Over the past five years, a full 20% of the nation’s water treatment plants have violated the SDWA.  Thankfully, the Environmental Protection Agency came down hard on those folks, prosecuting almost 6% of violators.  Wow, thanks for the effort.

Hidden in the Times report was a small but important factoid.  The majority of malfunctioning water treatment systems serve fewer than 20,000 people.

This George character looks to be fairly prescient with a decade in the rearview mirror, huh?

Right now in our General Assembly, the water battles are being fought over discharges into Pennsylvania waterways, not the water we remove, treat and drink.  Frac water treatment from Marcellus Shale drilling has caught the attention of state regulators.  The Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry is railing over proposed tough new standards on Total Dissolved Solids allowed to be discharged into our waterways.  And farmers in the Chesapeake Bay watershed are bracing for drastic and potentially expensive changes aimed at keeping sediment out of the tributaries leading into the bay.  Check out our previous post on water issues.

Ten years ago, the General Assembly passed on the chance to consider the George bill.  As the state continues to take testimony on proposed changes to the Statewide Water Plan, will the shocking new revelations from the Times spur a second look at an idea first proposed by the Gentleman from Clearfield?  Or perhaps an update to our own Safe Drinking Water Act, first passed in 1985?

Hell or high water?