The following is an edited version of an open letter to the PA Department of Environmental Protection:

I am petitioning you from Milford, PA. about a very important issue central to our community’s future health—protecting our drinking  water supply.

On January 19. Gov. Wolf announced an investment of $168 million for 15 projects in the state.

Gov. Wolf, do not forget Pike County.

As you know, politically Pike County is a ruby-red bastion. But if a Democratic administration could come through to protect the Milford Aquifer, our water source, it would go a long way to show local Democrats, moderate Republicans and Independents that the state government does work for the good of the community.

There are state programs dedicated to protecting community drinking-water sources. I am hoping that our state DEP office could be instrumental in allowing Milford to tap into some of those state funds to protect the Milford Aquifer.  

Biden’s infrastructure bill allocates $55 billion in water source protection projects. We have about 250 acres of undeveloped land critical to the health of the aquifer that needs to be taken off the commercial real estate market and placed into conservation easements or purchased outright by the Milford Water Authority. State and federal funding will be necessary to do this.

Most of these 250 acres are on or within the steep slope drainage of the aquifer, and are on the real estate market for millions of dollars as “prime commercial property.”

If we can assure the property owners that state and federal funding is available to fairly compensate them for their loss of development rights, I believe we can convince the owners to voluntarily take their property off the real estate market. We can entice them to place these properties into conservation easements or give the Milford Water Authority the funds to buy the properties outright.

Funding sources exist. There are existing federal and state programs for drinking water protection, along with private conservation-group funding for protective conservation easements. There is funding from the infrastructure bill. There is also the federally funded Delaware River Watershed Conservation Fund. All we need is your help navigating all these agencies to ensure that the proper funding sources are applied to the Milford Aquifer problem.

Contact me so that we can get appropriate funding as soon as possible. Our group is on Facebook as the Friends of the Milford Aquifer.

Vito DiBiasi lives in Milford, PA.