Impact on takeover on open space
The CWA owns the Octoraro Reservoir in Lancaster County. The reservoir is a two-billion-gallon freshwater lake surrounded by over 2000 acres of untouched land, also owned by the CWA. The Octoraro Reservoir and its surrounding land are home to wildlife including bald eagles, herons, wild turkeys, and more. The reservoir and the surrounding watershed are also widely used for non-polluting public recreation, such as fishing, boating, kayaking, hiking, bird watching, and hunting. It is all free and open to the community for enjoyment and recreation.
As with Aqua’s other acquisitions such as the Springton Reservoir in Delaware County, it can be expected that Aqua will fence-off the reservoir from the community, prohibit recreational activities, and parcel and sell the surrounding land for private homes and commercial businesses.
Pennsylvanians have rights to their natural resources. The Pennsylvania Constitution states: “The people have a right to clean air, pure water, and to the preservation of the natural, scenic, historic and esthetic values of the environment. Pennsylvania’s public natural resources are the common property of all the people, including generations yet to come. As trustee of these resources, the Commonwealth shall conserve and maintain them for the benefit of all the people.” Pa. Const. art. I, § 27. Simply put, our government—nature’s “trustee” under our state constitution—needs to preserve our natural resources and not sell them off to profit-driven companies.
Read more about the impact of the proposed sale of the CWA on our community’s open space in the links below: