Pennsylvania Angler & Boater - November/December 2017 - 52

An Environmental Review Tool
at the Apex of Technological Advancement

photos-PFBC archives

by Chris Urban and Kathy Gipe
PFBC Natural Diversity Section

Early environmental review

The phones are often ringing at the Pennsylvania Fish & Boat
Commission's (PFBC) Division of Environmental Services,
from people wanting to check on various types of permit
applications, to know what to do about a turtle nesting in the
yard, to see if an endangered species can prevent development
in a neighborhood, to check on the identification of a snake
found in the backyard and many other reasons. However, since
Pennsylvania's new online environmental review system was
released in 2016, the phones don't ring as much as they used to
for the purpose of checking on the review of a project for rare,
threatened and endangered species impacts.
Environmental review refers to the permitting process
that proposed projects (e.g., commercial and residential
developments, pipelines, well pads, cell towers, bridge
replacements and upgrades, new roads, sewage projects,
landfills, mining) go through to ensure that they do not
impact rare species. Biologists at PFBC have been conducting
these reviews for fish, amphibians, reptiles, and aquatic
invertebrates for well over 20 years. Commission biologists
make recommendations to project proponents and other
permitting agencies to avoid and minimize adverse impacts to
rare, threatened and endangered species.
In the early days of environmental review, project reviews
were mostly a paper exercise with the project proponent
submitting a narrative and site-specific plan, description of
onsite habitats, photographs and other project information.
Commission biologists would use this information to better
understand the project specifics while considering rare species
locational information that were essentially kept on paper
maps. Areas deemed "hot" for the rare species would generate
a "hit" or "potential conflict." If species locational information
intersected habitat at a given project site, PFBC would notify the

52

project proponent. Communication by postal mail resulted in
a drawn-out conflict resolution process.
Rare, threatened and endangered species locational
information is derived from multiple, credible sources
including incidental observations, contracts and grants,
focused species distributional studies, scientific collector
permit reports, natural area inventories and pre-development
surveys. The rare species data are housed in a centralized
database called the "PNDI" (Pennsylvania Natural Diversity
Inventory) system at the Pennsylvania Department of
Conservation and Natural Resources (PA DCNR) Bureau
of Forestry. During the late 1990s and early 2000s, agencies
searched the PNDI system by coordinates to indicate whether
a project would have any species conflicts. But, it was greatly
slowed by an internal dial-up modem-based system. Despite
the technical difficulties, the concept was cutting edge and
the PNDI system began to be used heavily. The PNDI system
streamlined the review process, and state and federal agencies
responsible for permitting encroachments adopted this PNDI
process as a check and balancing system for rare species
impact reviews. The system fulfilled Endangered Species
Act (ESA) requirements as well as state policies for many
permit types. As you can imagine, PNDI review workload for
Commission biologists increased significantly.

Project tracking

Project tracking in the early days of environmental review
was difficult. Projects were manually catalogued in 3-ringed
binders. When a project applicant called to discuss a project,
it would take time to look through the binder to find the
appropriate project, and the file room to find the file for
the corresponding project. The internal tracking system
evolved in the mid- to late 1990s into a searchable database.
This was a significant upgrade. These initial project tracking
databases used Dbase IV and later Microsoft Excel and
could only be used by one user at a time. Later versions
were upgraded from spreadsheets to relational databases
(Microsoft Access), which expanded the ability to query
projects and began to simplify data entry by employing

Pennsylvania Angler & Boater * November/December 2017	

www.gonefishingpa.com

map-www.conservationexplorer.dcnr.pa.gov

Pennsylvania Conservation Explorer


http://www.conservationexplorer.dcnr.pa.gov http://www.gonefishingpa.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Pennsylvania Angler & Boater - November/December 2017

https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pafishboat/20240102
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pafishboat/20231112
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pafishboat/20230910
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pafishboat/20230708
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pafishboat/20230506
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pafishboat/20230304
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pafishboat/20230102
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pafishboat/20221112
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pafishboat/20220910
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pafishboat/20220708
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pafishboat/20220506
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pafishboat/20220304
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pafishboat/20220102
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pafishboat/20211112
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pafishboat/20210910
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pafishboat/20210708
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pafishboat/20210506
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pafishboat/20210304
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pafishboat/20210102
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pafishboat/20201112
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pafishboat/20200910
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pafishboat/20200708
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pafishboat/20200506
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pafishboat/20200304
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pafishboat/20200102
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pafishboat/20191112
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pafishboat/20190910
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pafishboat/20190708
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pafishboat/20190506
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pafishboat/20190304
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pafishboat/20190102
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pafishboat/20181112
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pafishboat/20180910
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pafishboat/20180708
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pafishboat/20180506
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pafishboat/20180304
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pafishboat/201780102
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pafishboat/20171112
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pafishboat/20170910
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pafishboat/20170708
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pafishboat/20170506
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pafishboat/20170304
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pafishboat/20170102
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pafishboat/20161112
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pafishboat/20160910
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pafishboat/20160708
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pafishboat/20160506
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pafishboat/20160304
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pafishboat/20160102
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pafishboat/20151112
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pafishboat/20150910
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pafishboat/20150708
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pafishboat/20150506
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pafishboat/20150304
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pafishboat/20150102
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pafishboat/20141112
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pafishboat/20140910
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pafishboat/20140708
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pafishboat/20140506
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pafishboat/20140304
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pafishboat/20140102
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pafishboat/20131112
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pafishboat/20130910
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pafishboat/20130708
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pafishboat/20130506
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pafishboat/20130304
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pafishboat/20130102
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pafishboat/20121112
https://www.nxtbookmedia.com