HANOVER TWP., Pa. — Officials behind a planned 250,000-square-foot warehouse project off Route 22 are seeking permission to discharge stormwater from construction into the Monocacy Creek.
And residents are invited to share their feedback.
The state Department of Environmental Protection will hold a public hearing 6-9 p.m. April 29 at Nitschmann Middle School, 1002 W. Union Blvd., Bethlehem, to take public testimony regarding Arcadia Development Corporation’s application for a National Pollutant Discharge and Elimination System, or NPDES, permit for the warehouse project.
The permit would “allow for the discharge of stormwater from construction activities to Monocacy Creek, which is designated as high-quality waters-cold water fishes and migratory fishes.”Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection release
A DEP news release Tuesday said the permit “will allow for the discharge of stormwater from construction activities to Monocacy Creek, which is designated as high-quality waters-cold water fishes and migratory fishes.”
Arcadia plans to tear down the SureStay Plus Hotel by Best Western at 300 Gateway Drive off Route 512 and replace it with a warehouse.
Representatives from the DEP’s Waterways and Wetlands Program, which will review the permit application; the Northampton County Conservation District; and Arcadia are scheduled to attend.
DEP received the NPDES permit application on May 25 and it was administratively complete on Sept. 12, according to the release. Written public comments were received during the public comment period.
Residents can submit written comments on the permit application to Pam Kania, Program Manager, DEP Waterways and Wetlands Program at pkania@pa.gov.
Those comments must be received by 4 p.m. May 9.
Endangered rivers, microplastics in streams
Water quality has been a point of contention across the Lehigh Valley as development continues to overtake green spaces.
Last April, the Lehigh River was included in a list of endangered rivers in the United States. Officials from American Rivers, a national nonprofit focused on clean water and river health, said it's threatened by “poorly planned development” of warehouses and distribution centers.
It was the first time the Lehigh River, a 109-mile-long tributary of the Delaware River that flows through most of the Lehigh Valley, was included in “America’s Most Endangered Rivers.”
The year prior, environmental officials studied several of the Valley’s waterways, including the Lehigh River, Little Lehigh Creek, Saucon Creek, Bushkill Creek and Monocacy Creek.
Each was found to contain different microplastic fragments, fibers or films — often residue from discarded or degraded plastic products such as clothing, hard plastics, bags, flexible packaging and cosmetic products.
Microplastics are plastic pieces less than 5mm long, or smaller than a grain of rice.
The Monocacy Creek, which flows into the Lehigh near downtown Bethlehem, passes through Bushkill, Moore, East Allen, Upper Nazareth, Lower Nazareth and Hanover townships.
It is designated as high-quality waters-cold water fishes, migratory fishes and receives special protection under the Clean Water Act.
The presence of wild trout in this urban gem is no accident: It is the result of decades of stewardship. Like many urban wild trout streams in Pennsylvania, the Monocacy has seen its fair share of challenges. In 1989, a nearby chemical spill killed more than 30,000 fish, many of them wild brown trout.Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership
It’s also one of the state’s limestone creeks, known for large trout and abundant insects.
“The presence of wild trout in this urban gem is no accident: It is the result of decades of stewardship,” according to the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership.
“Like many urban wild trout streams in Pennsylvania, the Monocacy has seen its fair share of challenges. In 1989, a nearby chemical spill killed more than 30,000 fish, many of them wild brown trout.
“Since then, the area has experienced a boom in development, resulting in challenges with polluted stormwater runoff and degraded streambank habitat.”
‘A high-quality waterway’
At the end of last year, the Monocacy Creek Watershed Association, a nonprofit focused on protecting the waterway, called for residents to submit comments to the DEP on the warehouse project.
“The presence of [a high-quality] waterway in a densely populated, urbanized community like the Lehigh Valley is exceptionally rare and precious,” according to a Dec. 30 post on the association’s Facebook page.
“Hundreds of thousands of people from all walks of life have access to an incredible resource. The Monocacy Creek has borne the brunt of warehouse development over the last decade.
“The creek has proven to be resilient, but it's unclear how much more stress it can handle.”
The written comment period for the proposal ended Jan. 8.
“We’ve seen countless warehouse/distribution center projects proposed or constructed in the Monocacy Creek watershed in recent years,” advocates argued in the post.
“These projects — like the one proposed here — risk degrading our local streams by changing natural drainage patterns, clear-cutting swaths of forested lands, dramatically increasing impervious surfaces, and creating more cumulative impacts from storm-water runoff.
“This runoff contains pollutants such as heat, salt, and sediment that cannot always be appropriately mitigated through built stormwater controls and best management practices.
"In addition to jeopardizing the water quality of our creek by dramatically changing the landscape and increasing impervious surface and polluted runoff, warehouse/distribution centers are threatening the health and safety of our communities through increased tractor trailer traffic, air quality concerns, and noise and lighting impacts, just to name a few.”
Lehigh Valley Planning Commission during a May meeting provided comments on the project, including on-site truck route and directional signage; coordination with PennDOT to mitigate any additional congestion on Route 22; infrastructure for charging electric vehicles and more.
The full minutes from the commission’s meeting can be found here.
