Watershed

The White Clay Creek passed one of its final impediments yesterday in its slow but steady flow toward being designated part of the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System. After approval by the Senate this year, the House of Representatives yesterday unanimously passed legislation approving the designation. "This has got to be the defining moment," said a jubilant Bob Cheyne, a London Britain Township supervisor. He and hundreds of other residents in the southern Chester County watershed have worked for more than 20 years to achieve the designation.

Ten Bucks County organizations and townships have been awarded more than $400,000 in state Department of Environmental Protection grants. The funds are part of the state's Growing Greener program, the largest environmental initiative in state history. The program was launched last December to protect watersheds, plug abandoned gas and oil wells, and clean up abandoned mines. One recipient, the Bucks County Planning Commission, will spend its $30,000 to assess the Otter Creek watershed and plan for its restoration.

Delaware County officials may end up in court if they do not comply soon with the state Storm Water Management Act, county Democratic Party vice chairman F. Joseph Merlino said Monday at a news conference. The 1978 act requires counties to make plans for land and water use regulation and flood-water control in watershed areas, but officials have made plans for only one watershed, Merlino said. Unless the county shows "a good faith and reasonable effort" to begin plans for the six remaining areas, Merlino said he and several other residents would file a lawsuit.

For most of northern Chester County from Scotts Run Lake in French Creek State Park to the Kennedy Bridge near Kimberton, the defining characteristic of the landscape is French Creek. The stream winds through two counties, eight municipalities, a national park, a state park, state game lands, a county park, private camps, historic sites, and thousands of acres of farmland. And in the midst of the late 20th-century development boom that has forever altered much of Chester County, French Creek and its watershed remain in a relatively unspoiled state.

The Township Council last night introduced an ordinance that would force commercial and industrial developers to comply with the tougher storm-water management rules that apply to home builders. The measure could make any possible renovations to the Moorestown Mall more environmentally sensitive but also more expensive. A $120 million expansion is being considered. The council unanimously approved the first reading of the ordinance, which would require water draining from industrial and commercial properties to be less polluted.

The Montgomery County commissioners opened the new courthouse annex in Willow Grove last night and honored a man who seized an armed robbery suspect Wednesday morning. Eric Pendergrass, 35, caught Mikal Wescott as he robbed a Cedarbrook Middle School student waiting for a bus in Cheltenham, according to police. Wescott had already robbed several other students, police said. One of the victims was Pendergrass' son, Dwayne, 12, who ran home and told his father about the incident.

Pennsylvania's top environmental official says the political climate may be right for the state to tackle its first comprehensive water plan. James Seif, secretary of the Department of Environmental Protection, said such a plan is the next logical step to manage growth. He spoke to 70 people at an event hosted by the Chester County 2020 Trust at the Brandywine Valley Association Friday afternoon. "Should we grab this whole subject of water and try to get our arms around it?"

Environmental and civic groups fear that Valley Creek will be jeopardized by flows of treated sewage from the Valley Crossing development that Rouse & Associates wants to build in East Whiteland Township. About 500,000 gallons of treated wastewater would flow daily into the creek under Rouse's development plan, which has won preliminary approval from East Whiteland's supervisors. The plan calls for 1,474 houses to be built north of Swedesford Road. An on-site sewage treatment plant would service the development, and its treated sewage would flow into Valley Creek.

Three years after bathers were banned from using Deep Creek Lake, an $800,000 dredging project that could bring their return is set to begin next month. "If there is ever going to be swimming there, it's going to happen in the next five years," said Michael Stokes, an environmental planner for Montgomery County. "If it doesn't happen in the next five years, it does not look very good. " The dredging project, pending some final permits, is scheduled to begin in mid-October and last through March.

YORK, Pa. - Pennsylvania environmental officials say about 1,400 gallons of milk from a storage tank leaked into a central Pennsylvania creek. Department of Environmental Protection officials say the milk leaked from a storage tank at Rutter's Dairy in Manchester Township, York County, into a nearby stream on Monday. Department spokesman John Repetz said that no aquatic organisms were found dead in the waterway and that the milk dispersed by natural means. Repetz said a weld split open on a 30,000-gallon storage tank, and about 14,000 gallons got through foam insulation around the tank.