There will be a meeting to discuss the possibility of railroad routes through the Lehigh Valley into New Jersey. Thursday, August 28 at 7 p.m. at the the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission on Marcon Blvd. on the airport area. Coming off Route 22 going north on Airport Road, take the first left turn (you may see signs to a U. S. Postal Facility). If you get tohe left turn onto the airport terminal itself, you have gone too far.

Click here to find out about past events.
Click here for our picture gallery of events, outings, and generally scenic pictures.
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Order Your Sierra Club Merchandise

Help support our group! Click here to order Sierra Club products.

Blue Mountain Development Project

Once again, the environmentally sensitive Blue Mountain and the Appalachian Trail are threatened with large-scale development. A landowner in Ross and Eldred Townships (identity unrevealed) is proposing a massive resort complex be built on 1100 acres of undeveloped land on the north side of Blue Mountain straddling the boundary between the two townships in Monroe County.

Elliott Building Group to develop 1100 acres on Blue Mountain. The proposed project will include a new ski resort, a mini-golf course, a large hotel, indoor and outdoor water parts, condominiums, and single-unit housing clusters.The developer is asking for 1200+ housing units and expects to bring 4500 to 5,000 visitors to the area daily.

This development would be on 1100 acres on the north face of the Blue Mountain in Ross and Eldred Townships at Smith Gap Road. The area borders the Appalachian Trail and the Aquashicola Creek, a high-quality cold water fishery. It is just west of the proposed Cherry Valley National Wildlife Refuge and east of the Wildlife Information Centers restoration of the Lehigh Gap

Action Needed:
Please write to the township supervisors to oppose this plan:

Ross Township:
• Howard A. Beers, Jr. Chairman
• Russell A. Kresge, Jr. Vice Chairman
• Tina Drake Supervisor
PO Box 276
Saylorsburg, PA 18353
Or check their website at www.rosstwp.com

Eldred Township:
• Glenn W. Beers
• Ilene M. Eckhart
• Sharon F. Solt
PO Box 600
Kunkletown, PA 18058
610 381 4252
Or check send them an email at eldred@ptd.net

Let the supervisors of Ross and Eldred Townships know that you expect them to uphold and enforce all existing Zoning, Subdivision and Land Development Ordinances as well as ensuring that all development along the Blue Mountain will be in accordance with the intent of the County and Regional Comprehensive Plans.
The Blue Mountain is a vital resource for our area. It is up to us to protect it.
Click here to read more
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Alpine Rose Race Track Action Needed

The threat to Blue Mountain from a proposed racetrack/resort in Eldred Township, Monroe County remains. This project has been the subject of years of litigation related to the noise that would be produced by the facility and its impact on the Appalachian Trail and neighboring residential communities.

On March 28, 2006 Blue Mountain Preservation, the Department of Environmental Protection and Alpine Rose Resorts Inc. faced off in the Courtroom of the Environmental Hearing Board in Norristown, Pa., for the first of four days of testimony about storm water and waste water plans for Alpine's ill-conceived racetrack proposal.

What You Can Do: download and send the sample letter to the PA DCED telling them that this project should not be financed with taxpayer dollars. Now we need you to write, too!

Write to your state legislators to oppose development aid for this project.
Click here to access letter you can print out and send

Click here to read about the Alpine Rose win
Click here to read the April 2006 update
Click here for information on contacting DCNR
Click here for the most recent update of the case
Click here to read about how they are being funded
Click here for the full article about Monroe County court ruling.
Click here for more information on the threat and what you can do.
Click here for more information about the appeal.
Click here for an article about the flawed noise study.
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Radar Tower

We are concerned about the development of a proposed radar tower on South Mountain to serve the Lehigh Valley International Airport. The targeted area is steeply sloped, wooded, and along migratory routes of songbirds whose populations are in decline.

Saving South Mountain Land Sale

The Sierra Club has joined with local citizens and citizens groups to try to win permanent open space protection for the approximately 50 acres of land held by the Salisbury Township School District. Originally acquired by eminent domain in the late 1960s to build a school, the land contains many unique environmental features that should be maintained for the benefit of the students of Salisbury Township, its residents, and the community at large.

In August 2005, the majority of Salisbury school board members voted in favor of selling the land to a developer, Signature Homes, for more than $4 million dollars. This vote came after several hours of testimony from residents, Sierra Club members, Representative Karen Beyer, and many others, voicing their wishes for the land not to be sold and developed. The Sierra Club is continuing to work to save this land from development. Stay tuned as the fight continues.

To help with this fight, contact out main activist on the issue: Deana M. Zosky at dmzeverg@ptd.net
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Cleaning up the Delaware River

On Tuesday, August 25th, the impoundment that contained the fly ash slurry collected from the two coal-burning generating units at the PPL facility at Martins Creek breached and failed, allowing 100 million gallons of the slurry to flow into the Delaware River. Sierra Club activists visited the Martins Creek plant on September 7, observing first hand the ramifications of the release and the efforts to clean up.

Preliminary tests of the water quality in the Delaware River and surrounding groundwater wells show that pollutants such as arsenic, mercury, lead, selenium, chromium, barium, cadmium and other heavy metals have been released in levels that exceed national drinking water standards. At press time, the contaminant-laden slurry still coated the river bottom for at least 8 miles, and was spreading downstream as far as 40 miles. Dried toxic ash coated the river banks.

The Sierra Club is concerned that the two coal-fired units were not immediately shut down after the breach. The DEP temporarily permitted slurry from the continued operation of these units and the ash-laden clean up waters to be released into unlined basin #1. When that basin started leaking, the coal-fired units were finally shut down.

For this reason, the Sierra Club is supporting the Delaware Riverkeeper Network’s request for a Preliminary Assessment under the Comprehensive Environmental Recovery Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA) of the threats to public health and the environment associated with the breach and failure of the impoundments. We believe that the damage to the Delaware River is extensive and requires the attention of the federal EPA.

If you’d like to help with this issue, please contact Barbara Benson, group conservation chair.
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Fighting for a Better Sewer in Upper Milford

Many Vera Cruz citizens are opposed to Upper Milford Township’s rush to adopt a sewer plan that doesn’t make environmental or economic sense to them. They are forming a group called CASS (Citizens for Affordable Sensible Sewage). The group is not opposed to either an Act 537 Plan for the township or sewers where they are needed and they are sensitive to the need to protect the Leibert Creek Watershed.

The entire area of Vera Cruz has a high water table and the proposed gravity sewer would require trenches eight to 12 feet deep that would constantly have to be pumped out. CASS wants the township to explore a low-pressure or hybrid system that is 15 to 30 percent cheaper and requires much less excavation. Such a low-pressure system would limit future development.

We urge Upper Milford citizens to inspect the plan (township building or library), call and write letters urging officials to explore more environmentally friendly and more affordable alternatives to the proposed gravity sewer, and attend supervisors’ meetings.

If you’d like to help with this issue, please contact Barbara Benson, group conservation chair.
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We Need YOU to Help

Although the numbers of members in our local group are high, the numbers of active members are perilously low. This year alone, we accomplished a lot, but our small core of fighters is growing weary. We desperately need energetic and fresh faces because so much more needs to be done.

Help Shape Sierra Club Policies by Serving on the Executive Committee

The Lehigh Valley group of the Sierra Club’s executive committee meets once a month from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Unitarian Universalist Church on Center and Wall Streets in Bethlehem.

This 9-member board decides what issues the local group should pursue, which local candidates to endorse, and which projects to carry out. Please consider donating two hours of your time each month to serve in this important role.

If this doesn't appeal to you, but you are still trying to figure out what you can do to help protect the environment, the Lehigh Valley Group is looking for volunteers in many other areas. Click here for other volunteer opportunities

If you don't see the opportunity you want, call an executive committee member and start your own committee. Remember, think globally and act locally. We need you!

Click here to find out how you can help
Not yet a member? Click here to join the Sierra Club.
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Opposing Water Privatization

In August, the Sierra Club—on a local, state, and national level—began working with citizens of Emmaus to convince its borough council not to privatize its public water utility.

The borough had been considering privatization, along with a number of options, to find the money needed to make necessary upgrades to the utility.

Emmaus citizens spoke loud and clear. Roughly 260 of them showed up to oppose the privatization during an August public hearing. Ruth Caplan, Chair of the National Sierra Club Water Privatization Task Force, traveled from Washington D.C. to the Emmaus hearing.

“If water is a public trust, then there is a parallel human right to water necessary for health and survival itself,” she told the council. “Over the last decade corporations have seized the opportunity to profit from the scarcity of clean water. Our concern and that of many others around the globe is that this leads to a justification for the commodification of water—having the price determined by the marketplace.”

Thanks to unprecedented mobilization by the citizens of Emmaus PA, the Borough Council voted unanimously on September 6, 2006 to take water privatization off the table!
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Herbicides in Bethlehem Watershed

The Bethlehem Authority held a public meeting on August 10 to discuss its proposed program for spraying herbicides on about 200 acres of its Poconos watershed. The Authority is responsible for the watershed that supplies water to Bethlehem and ten other municipalities.

Sierra Club activist Dave McGuire has been monitoring most meetings of the Authority since 2001, when a destructive proposal for extensive timbering in the watershed was exposed and killed by public involvement by the SC and citizens.

Now, a new master plan for protection of the natural resources of the watershed has been developed. It identifies the need for action to give remaining stands of high quality trees the chance to regenerate their seeds. This involves spraying the area with EPA approved herbicides to kill ferns, thinning the tree stands to increase sunlight on the forest floor, and then fencing the area to keep out the deer herd, which would eat the emerging saplings.

The Authority considered this action a routine matter and did not plan to notify the public. McGuire pointed out this oversight, noting that extensive outreach to the public was a key point of the watershed management plan. The Board agreed and directed that a public meeting be held to explain and discuss the program.

If you’d like to help with this issue, please contact our main activist on the matter, Dave McGuire.

Click here to read an article about protecting the watershed
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Sign up for Lehigh Valley Group E-mail Updates

Our newsletter only goes out a few times a year, and environmental issues don't always arise on our newsletter schedule. Therefore, we are starting an e-mail alert service. When there is information about important environmental events in the Lehigh Valley, outings, programs, news from the group, and actions you can take to support the local environment, we will send out e-mail alerts to all who subscribe.

To become a member of the Lehigh Valley e-mail alert list, click on mailto:listserv@lists.sierraclub.org?body=SUBSCRIBE PA-LEHIGH-ALERTS
Be sure to add your name to the body of the mail.

Send us an email at lhv@pennsylvania.sierraclub.org
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Find out about our history and read our bylaws in the About Us section.

Find out what you can do to help on our Volunteers Needed page.

Find older articles and issue write-ups in our Archives.

View photos from Sierra Club events in our picture gallery.

Contact information for your committee members is in the committee section.
Send us an email at lhv@pennsylvania.sierraclub.org

If you have feedback or problems with this site, or wish to make a comment or suggestion, please contact:
Nanci McGonigal at nanci@netcarrier.com

Site last updated on December 1, 2007

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