PennDOT's Plan Damages the Environment

The proposed expansion of Route 41 to four lanes for the 9.6 miles from Limestone Road (extension of Delaware Route 7) to PA Route 926, with roughly half of this length in newly constructed limited access highway will produce a variety of environmental impacts. These include displacement of residents and business, and impacts to wetlands, floodplains, water quality, air quality, prime farmlands, endangered species, and historic and cultural resources. PennDOT is required to evaluate these impacts in an Environmental Impact Statement, scheduled to be released in draft form (as a "DEIS") late in 2002 or early 2003. At this time the public will have 45 days to evaluate the DEIS and submit comments. The following is partial list compiled by S.A.V.E. of expected impacts on environmental quality.

Water Resources

Route 41 crosses through the headwaters of four watersheds-Red Clay, White Clay, Brandywine, and Octoraro-and skirts within a short distance of a fifth-Big Elk Creek. Each of these provides drinking water to thousands of people, in addition to providing aquatic habitat and recreational resources. The White Clay has recently been given Federal Wild and Scenic status.

Much of the impact of highway construction on water resources is related to the increase in impervious surfaces. Paved or impervious surfaces have major impacts on both the quality and quantity of streamwater and groundwater. Precipitation falling on road surfaces dissolves and suspends accumulated pollutants, including hydrocarbons, heavy metals, and nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus) and transport them to receiving water bodies. Impacts can be reduced by the use of grass swales and detention basins, but their effectiveness is limited. Impervious surfaces also exacerbate flooding by preventing infiltration of precipitation. Water that would otherwise enter the soil as groundwater is diverted to storm runoff producing both direct flooding hazards, as well as excessive erosion and scouring of stream channels. The recharge of groundwater supplies is diminished, reducing drinking water supplies and reducing streamflows during dry periods, when these flows are critical to the maintenance of aquatic habitat. As a result of these combined processes, studies have documented a clear link between the proportion of a drainage basin covered by impervious surfaces and declines in biodiversity and in the quality of insect and fish communities. Effects of impervious surfaces become significant when 10 to 20% or more of a drainage basin is impervious.

Expansion of Route 41 to four lanes, including bypasses of Avondale and Chatham would pave an estimated 60 to 80 acres, nearly tripling land now occupied by Route 41. According to the White Clay Watershed Management plant, impervious surface in the watershed should not exceed 20% of land area. If the road construction were to meet this criterion, the project would have to preserve 240 to 320 acres of land from future development.

Concerns about impervious surface are particularly serious in the area South of the Route 1 bypass and through Avondale, where the underlying bedrock, Cockeysville Marble, constitutes a major water supply aquifer and is particularly vulnerable to contamination.

While the direct impact of paving 60 to 80 acres is a serious concern, it is relatively small in comparison to the indirect impact on area-wide impervious surfaces, and hence on water resources, that can be expected from highway expansion. The indirect impact is the increase in impervious surfaces associated with the additional growth in residential and commercial development caused by highway expansion. Based on studies of induced traffic, S.A.V.E. estimates that expansion will bring approximately 6000 new residents, 2700 new houses, and 400 additional acres of impervious surfaces. In other words, the indirect impacts on water resources of highway expansion may exceed the direct impacts by a factor of 5- to 7-fold.

• Wetlands Destruction — All of the proposed alignments involve crossing wetlands. Some of the wetlands threatened by the bypasses may involve habitat for the bog turtle, an endangered species. Natural wetlands provide many ecological functions, serving as habitat for critical life stages of many aquatic and terrestrial species. Wetlands also mitigate flooding, purify water, and sustain downstream ecosystems. As such, they are protected by law. Legal loopholes, however, allow natural wetlands to be replaced by artificially constructed wetlands although it has recently become clear that few artificially constructed wetlands are successful. Alternatively, PennDOT may be required to cross the wetlands with highway elevated some 50 feet above the wetland. Such elevation may provide reasonable protection for the wetland, but will exacerbate noise effects and destroy scenic resources.

• Noise — Noise impacts from Route 41 can be expected to increase dramatically as a result of higher speeds, greater traffic volume, and an increased proportion of heavy truck traffic. Thousands of residents along the corridor will be affected. For neighbors dwelling within a few hundred feet of the highway, normal activities such as conversations in the back yard may be disrupted. Annoying, yet less severe sounds may impact the residents more than one mile from the highway. Sound barriers may offer some mitigation, but their effectiveness is limited and they may not be constructed at all where benefit/cost analyses do not meet PennDOT's criteria.

• Air Quality — Expansion of Route 41 may be expected to attract a substantially greater volume of traffic, which in turn will cause air quality to further deteriorate. Health effects of air pollutants include headaches, eye irritation, reduced lung function, lung damage, respiratory disease, and cancer. Chester County, PA is part of the Philadelphia-Wilmington-Trenton area, which is in non-attainment of Clean Air Act targets for ozone. In fact, Chester County is ranked among the dirtiest 10% of U.S. counties in terms of an average individual's added risk of cancer from hazardous air pollutants. According to the EPA's most recent data, 438,435 people in Chester County face a cancer risk more than 100 times the goal set by the Clean Air Act - with 89% of the air cancer risk coming from mobile sources.

  Under Clean Air Act regulations, federally-funded highway projects may "not cause new air quality violations, worsen existing violations, or delay timely attainment of the national air quality standards."

  Although it may be argued that, for a given amount of traffic, a higher capacity highway can reduce air pollution by reducing the time vehicles spend idling or accelerating from stops, any such reductions can be expected to be offset by the greater traffic volumes, induced by the excess capacity. Moreover, the additional or induced traffic (which may consume up to 90% of the additional capacity within a few years), may cause the highway to re-congest far sooner than anticipated and therefore to nullify any of the expected air quality benefits. On Route 41, the impact on air quality is exacerbated by the high volume of heavy trucks, and the potential for the expansion to attract even higher truck traffic.

• Scenic Resources — The proposed limited-access bypasses will have a major impact on the landscape. The highway will approximately 100 feet wide, shoulder to shoulder including a 30-foot median. Most of the crossings of existing roads will involve overpasses. Clearance requirements, combined with grade restrictions will place the new road surface far above the existing grade-perhaps by as much as 30 to 40 feet. Clearance requirements for crossing wetlands promise to have a similar impact.