Environment of Pennsylvania facts for kids
Pennsylvania is a northeastern commonwealth located in the United States of America. It was one of the 13 original colonies. Pennsylvania is home to a population of 12,802,503 individuals and various different types of environments. Pennsylvania is known for its many hills, plateaus, mountains and valleys. In fact, Pennsylvania is 50 percent forest land with the only lowlands located in the southeast.
Contents
Mountains
Pennsylvania has many different mountain ranges with the highest point being at 3,213Â feet on Mt. Davis. The main mountain ranges include the Appalachian, Allegheny and Pocono Mountains. The Appalachian Mountain Range runs throughout Pennsylvania and seventeen other states, creating the largest mountain range in Pennsylvania. The Allegheny Mountain Range connects to the Appalachian Mountains in west and central Pennsylvania. The Pocono Mountain Range runs throughout northeastern Pennsylvania. The Allegheny and Pocono mountains are the two largest subranges in Pennsylvania. Other mountain ranges in Pennsylvania include the Bear Pond Mountains, the Blue Ridge Mountains, the Conewago Mountains, Music Mountains, Town Hill Mountain Range, and the Endless Mountains. To find a full list of mountains in Pennsylvania look at Category:Mountain ranges of Pennsylvania.
Rivers
Pennsylvania also has more significant waterways than any other US state. In fact, Pennsylvania has more than 83,000 miles of rivers, creeks, and streams. The main waterways are the Delaware River, Allegheny River, Ohio River, Monongahela River and the Susquehanna River. Every Pennsylvania river is categorized into five classifications by the Pennsylvania Scenic Rivers. The classifications are wild, scenic, pastoral, recreational, or modified recreational. Any individual river can have more than one classification, but they all have at least one. For a full list of river go to List of rivers of Pennsylvania.
Landfills in Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania also has a vast amount of landfills. In total, Pennsylvania has 45 municipal waste landfills, 3 construction/demolition waste landfills, 4 residual waste landfills, and 6 resource recovery/waste to energy landfills. Below is a table of the 45 municipal landfills and their daily volume of trash entering the landfills daily. These landfills are not only holding the trash of the citizens of Pennsylvania, but they also hold the trash of other states. Pennsylvania is one of the main states that imports waste. Much of Pennsylvania's waste comes from neighboring states such as New Jersey and New York. In fact, Pennsylvania has more trash per person at 34.5 tons of trash per person than every other sate except Nevada in 2016. However, this process of importing waste is very lucrative for the Pennsylvania counties by providing labor market opportunities and helps increase the municipality's budgets by fees paid by these exporting states. For example, Throop, Pennsylvania $6 million budget is made up of $4 million from the host feels paid from importing other state's waste.
| Landfill Name | Daily Volume
(tons) |
County |
|---|---|---|
| Fairless Landfill | adv: 18,333
mdv: 20,000 |
Bucks |
| GROWS North Landfill | Bucks | |
| Tullytown Landfill | Bucks | |
| SECCRA Landfill | adv: 375
mdv: 700 |
Chester |
| IESI Bethlehem Landfill | adv: 1,375
mdv: 1,800 |
North Hampton |
| Commonwealth Environmental Systems | adv: 4,750
mdv: 5,000 |
Schuylkill |
| Chrin Brothers Sanitary Landfill | adv: 1,500
mdv: 2,000 |
Northhampton |
| Alliance Landfill | adv: 3,000
mdv: 5,500 |
Lackawanna |
| Grand Central Landfill | adv: 2,750
mdv: 3,000 |
Northampton |
| Keystone Sanitary Landfill | adv: 7,250
mdv: 7,500 |
Lackawanna |
| Advanced Disposal Services Sandy Run Landfill | adv: 750
mdv: 1,000 |
Bedford |
| Conestoga Landfill | adv: 5,210
mdv: 10,000 |
Berks |
| Rolling Hills Landfill | adv: 3,200
mdv: 3,840 |
Berks |
| Cumberland County Landfill | adv: 2,500
mdv: 2,950 |
Cumberland |
| LCSWMA Frey Farm Landfill | adv: 1,500
mdv: 2,000 |
Lancaster |
| Greater Lebanon Refuse Authority Landfill | adv: 520
mdv: 1,100 |
Lebanon |
| Lanchester Landfill | adv: 1,650
mdv: 1,850 |
Lancaster |
| Modern Landfill | adv: 4,667
mdv: 5,000 |
York |
| Mountain View Reclamation | adv: 1,800
mdv: 2,000 |
Franklin |
| Pioneer Crossing | adv: 1,000
mdv: 1,600 |
Berks |
| IESI Blue Ridge Landfill | adv: 1,700
mdv: 2,000 |
Franklin |
| Western Berks Landfill | adv: 1,000
mdv: 1,250 |
Berks |
| Bradford County Landfill | adv: 500
mdv: 750 |
Bradford |
| Wayne Township Landfill | adv: 1,200
mdv: 1,500 |
Clinton |
| Lycoming County Landfill | adv: 1,600
mdv: 2,000 |
Lycoming |
| Arden Landfill | adv: 2,400
adv: 2,800 |
Washington |
| Chestnut Valley Landfill | adv: 1,200
mdv: 1,500 |
Fayette |
| Greenridge Reclamation | adv: 2,500
mdv: 2,500 |
Westmoreland |
| Imperial Landfill | adv: 3,100
mdv: 4,666 |
Allegheny |
| J.J. Brunner, Inc. Landfill | adv: 425
mdv: 525 |
Beaver |
| Kelly Run Sanitation | adv: 1,250
mdv: 1,750 |
Allegheny |
| Laurel HIghland Landfill | adv: 2,000
mdv: 2,500 |
Cambria |
| South Hills Landfill | adv: 2,280
mdv: 2,850 |
Washington |
| Monroevill Landfill | adv:1,800
mdv: 2,200 |
Allegheny |
| Mostoller Landfill | adv: 2,000
mdv: 2,400 |
Somerset |
| Evergreen Landfill | adv: 1,000
mdv: 1,500 |
Indiana |
| Shade Landfill | adv: 2,900
mdv: 3,500 |
Somerset |
| Tervita Sanitary Landfill | adv: 2,900
mdv: 3,500 |
Westmoreland |
| Southern Alleghenies | adv: 2,200
mdv: 3,300 |
Somerset |
| Valley Landfill | adv: 2,600
mdv: 4,000 |
Westmoreland |
| Greentree Landfill | adv: 5,500
mdv: 6,000 |
Elk |
| Lake View Landfill | adv: 4,600
mdv: 5,000 |
Erie |
| McKean County Landfill | adv: 6,000
mdv: 6,000 |
McKean |
| Northwest Sanitary Landfill | adv: 2,500
mdv: 2,500 |
Butler |
| Seneca Landfill | adv: 3,000
mdv: 3,000 |
Butler |
Recycling in Pennsylvania
One way to reduce the amount of waste going to the Pennsylvania landfills is to have a recycling campaign. Recycling statewide began with the instatement of the Municipal Waste Planning Recycling and Waste Reduction Act, also known as Act 101 in July 1988. Act 101 at this time had four major goals:
- Recycle 25 percent of PA's solid waste stream by January 1997
- Reduce waste going to landfills
- Increase the use of products that are recyclable or made from recycled material
- Educate each person in the commonwealth as to the value of recycling and waste reduction
These plans were going to be implemented throughout several phases within each municipality over the following years. A county's responsibilities were to manage the municipalities recycling efforts. In efforts to manage the municipalities the county would have to have a solid waste plan in place by March 1991, which would be revised every 3 years, and to submit annual reports to the state based on the efforts of each municipality's recycling efforts. These annual reports would then be combined to create a statewide report of its recycling efforts and the benefits gained by doing so. This act was funded by the Recycling Fund which created a $2-per-ton fee on all waste entering the landfills known as the recycling fee. In addition to the Recycling Fund they also received other grants such as the household hazardous Waste Collection and Disposal Grants, Host Municipality Inspector Grants, and Independent Permit Application Review Grants.
Act 101 in its essence is still in place today for all municipalities and has only been revised twice to help strengthen and grow the program. The most recent change to Act 101 happened in May 2010 which is the extension of the collection of the recycling fee of $2-per-ton to 2020. Other changes to Act 101 are Act 140 which established requirement for the spending of grants over 10,000 given to communities by Act 101. Act 140 also gave municipalities requirements such as:
- "All residents must be required by ordinance to have waste and recycling services
- Must have an implemented residential curbside recycling program
- Must facilitate a commercial recycling program
- Must provide semi-annual residential and commercial recycling education
- Enforcement program
- Special Materials Program- for the collection of special waste such as tires, white goods, HHW, etc. Must have provision for or participate in county, multi-municipal, or private sector collection efforts
- Anti-Littering Program-through practice and/or education; sponsor, facilitate, or support programs that address anti-littering and illegal dumping
- Recycling Coordinator-just have a designated person or entity responsible for recycling data collection and reporting"
The most recent results of these acts are as followed:
- In 2014, Pennsylvania recycled over 16.84 million tons of resources with benefits of having 15.88 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions removed from the air.
- In 2013, Pennsylvania recycled over 6.12 million tons of resources with benefits of having 7.5 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions from the air.
- In 2012, Pennsylvania recycled over 8.5 million tons of resources.
EcoTourism in Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania's beautiful landscapes can be seen through its many national parks. In fact, Pennsylvania has 19 National Parks throughout the state. However, Pennsylvania has an additional 9 park sites that are either affiliated or managed by the National Park Service. This allows for a number of different avenues to bring in revenue throughout the parks within Pennsylvania that receive 9,935,361 individuals visiting them each year. These visitors create an overall economic benefit of $453,100,000 from tourism at these sites. This economic benefit can be the result of entrance fees, food purchases, and souveniors. Below is a table of the 19 National State Parks in Pennsylvania and their yearly operation costs and personal costs from the 2017 fiscal year. These operating costs are what are deducted from the parks revenue to find the total profit of each park. These operations costs include things such as maintenance of the parks and wages for park workers. The yearly personal costs are the costs of entrance for the parks. In addition, the table includes the yearly visitation of the parks to show the number of visitors that went through during the 2014 year. To begin to see a portion of the revenue made by these parks is the revenue made by entrance fees. To find this portion of the revenue, multiply the yearly visitation and the yearly personal costs. This will result in only one small portion of the yearly revenue that these parks produce.
| National State Parks in PA | Location in PA | Yearly Operation Costs (Hundreds) | Yearly Visitation | Yearly Personal Costs | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Allegheny Portage Railroad National Historic Site | Gallitzin, PA | 2,115 | 148,280 | Free to Public |
 |
| Appalachian National Scenic Trail(Appalachian Trail) | Pen Mar, PA to Delaware Water Gap | 1,586 | N/A | Free to Public |
.jpg) |
| Chesapeake Bay Gateways Network | Towanda, PA to
York, PA |
9,577 | 4,925,582 | Free to Public |
 |
| Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area | 9,832 | 4,314,085 | Cars: $7.00
Bikes: $1.00 Walking:$1.00 |
 |
|
| Edgar Allan Poe National Historic Site | Philadelphia, PA | 397 | 13,128 | Free to Public |
 |
| Eisenhower National Historic Site | Gettysburg, PA | 1,123 | 54,668 | Kids: $5.00 Adults: $7.50 |
 |
| First State National Historical Park | Chaddsford, PA | 717 | N/A | Free to Public |
 |
| Flight 93 National Memorial | Schanksville, PA | 1,588 | 262,441 | Free to Public |
 |
| Fort Necessity National Battlefield | Farmington, PA | 1,615 | 199,837 | Free to Public |
 |
| Friendship Hill National Historic Site | Point Marion, PA | 579 | 32,864 | Free to Public |
.jpg) |
| Gettysburg National Military Park | Gettysburg, PA | 7,004 | 1,003,581 | Free to Public |
 |
| Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site | Elverson, PA | 1,437 | 44,929 | Free to Public |
.jpg) |
| Independence National Historical Park | Philadelphia, PA | 23, 876 | 3,552,672 | Free to Public |
 |
| Johnstown Flood National Memorial | South Fork, PA | 821 | 139,603 | Free to Public |
 |
| Potomac Heritage National Scenic Trail | Dunbar, PA | 406 | N/A | Free to Public |
.jpg) |
| Steamtown National Historic Site | Scranton, PA | 5,709 | 81,802 | Entrance Fee: $7.00
Train Ride:$5.00 |
 |
| Thaddeus Kosciuszko National Memorial | Philadelphia, PA | 166 | 1,608 | Free to Public |
 |
| Upper Delaware Scenic and Recreational River | Pike and Wayne, PA | N/A | 228,284 | Free to Public |
 |
| Valley Forge National Historic Park | Valley Forge, PA | 6,396 | 1,897,029 | Free to Public |
 |
Since the affiliated and parks managed by the National Park Service do not have use the National Park Service's budget therefore they were not reported in the budget justification of the 2017 fiscal year. Hence, we do not have their operation costs, but we do still have the yearly personal costs.
| Affiliated or Managed by National Park Service within PA | Location in PA | Yearly Personal Costs | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Captain John Smith Chesapeake National Historic Trail | Lancaster, PA | Free to Public |
.jpg) |
| Delaware and Lehigh National Heritage Corridor | Easton, PA | Free to Public |
 |
| Gloria Dei Church National Historic Site | Philadelphia, PA | Free to Public |
_Church_National_Historic_Site_GLDE5015.jpg) |
| Lower Delaware National Wild and Scenic River | Philadelphia, PA | Free to Public | |
| North Country National Scenic Trail | Baker, PA | Free to Public |
 |
| Oil Region National Heritage Area | Oil City, PA | Free to Public | |
| Rivers of Steel National Heritage Area | Homestead, PA | Free to Members
$1 for Kids $3 for Adults |
|
| Schuylkill River Valley | Pottstown, PA | Free to Public | |
| Washington-Rochambeau Revolutionary Route National Historic Trail | Philadelphia, PA | Free to Public |
 |
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