+ Diaries Of The Diabolical

Are You Telling Your Story? Senate returns to session October 17, 18, 19, 24, 25, 26, November 15 [Adjourn for year]      -- Committee Schedule House returns to session October 24, 25, 26, November 14, 15, 16 [Adjourn for year]      -- Committee Schedule TODAY’s Calendar Of Events     WEDNESDAY 9:00:   Agenda Posted . Environmental Quality Board meeting.  Room 105 Rachel Carson Building.  See webpage for remote options to join the meeting. Contact: Laura Griffin laurgriffi@pa.gov or 717-772-3277. [Note: Conventional Oil & Gas Methane, PFOS MCL Regulations.]  Read more on the agenda .   -- DEP: Tuesday Declared Air Quality Action Day In Liberty-Clairton Area Allegheny County     -- Guest Essay: Before The Federal Clean Water Act, There Was The Rivers And Harbors Act Of 1899 To Help Clean-Up Pittsburgh’s 3 Rivers - By James M. Seif, Former EPA Region III Administrator, Secretary of DEP  [PaEN]   -- Indiana Gazette: Crooked Creek Tributary To Benefit From $322,920 DEP Watershed

A total of 63 “reportable outage events” during 2021 disrupted electric service to residents and businesses across Pennsylvania – all related to the impact of weather on the state’s power grid – marking a substantial increase over previous years and marking the highest number of incidents since the Public Utility Commission began collecting this type of reliability data in 1993. The PUC’s latest Electric Service Reliability Report details reliability information for the 2021 calendar year for the state’s 11 electric distribution companies (EDCs), including Citizens’ Electric, Duquesne Light, Metropolitan Edison, PECO, Pennsylvania Electric, Pennsylvania Power, Pike County Light & Power, PPL Electric Utilities, UGI Utilities, Wellsboro Electric and West Penn Power. According to the report, most EDCs struggled to meet key reliability performance benchmarks during 2021.  While some of the outage events could be attributed to aging infrastructure, the number of reportable outage event

On October 11, the  Independent Regulatory Review Commission formally sent DEP its order laying out the reasons for its September 15 disapproval of the final Environmental Quality Board regulation setting a water q uality standard for manganese DEP said would protect public health and aquatic life. The EQB/DEP will now have 40 days-- until November 20-- to decide whether to resubmit the regulation to IRRC with or without changes, if they want to proceed with the rulemaking. The EQB is scheduled to meet October 12 and DEP will no doubt give the Board an update on the status of this regulation.  Read more here . Reasons For IRRC Disapproval The reasons for the IRRC disapproval are no surprise-- -- DEP did not comply with the intent of Act 40 of 2017 to promulgate a final regulation moving the point of compliance from the point of discharge to the point of water withdrawal and use.  The regulation uses the point of discharge into a stream. -- IRRC agreed with

On October 11, members of the Chesapeake Executive Council met for their annual meeting and elected EPA Administrator Michael Regan chair and began the discussion of the steps needed for states to get closer to meeting the 2025 pollution reduction milestones. The Council includes governors of Delaware, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia, the mayor of the District of Columbia, the chair of the tri-state legislative Chesapeake Bay Commission and the administrator of the EPA on behalf of the federal government. Not Meeting Milestones On October 4, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released its evaluations of how the seven jurisdictions in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed did in meeting the 2020-21 and 2022-2023 cleanup milestones. Only the District of Columbia and West Virginia are on track to meet their overall cleanup goals by 2025, but the other jurisdictions are not on track to meet all the cleanup goals.  Read more here . "Pennsylvani