Pennsylvania Legacies #221: Common Ground

Josh Raulerson (00:01):

It is Friday, August 9th, 2024 from the Pennsylvania Environmental Council. This is Pennsylvania Legacies. I’m Josh Raulerson. Throughout Western Pennsylvania, you’ll find homes and businesses perched along mountain ridges tucked into narrow valleys or clinging to steep slopes. Many of those structures are built on or below unstable soil that can collapse without warning or wash away in heavy rain, sometimes taking whole buildings with them. It happened last winter in Moon Township, outside Pittsburgh, where residents of one neighborhood were told to evacuate after a chunk of hillside that included several homes.

Newscaster (00:40)

Backyards slid down onto a busy roadway, and it’s not done yet. Another few yards look likely to fall soon.

Moon Township resident (00:43):

Definitely, I would say like, this is not safe. Yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s frustrating.

Josh Raulerson (00:49):

Landslides, already a common enough occurrence in many places, are happening more frequently in Pennsylvania. And with more frequent and severe rain events causing more flash, flooding and erosion, you can expect that trend to continue. But despite the risk, it’s currently not possible to ensure properties against landslides, sinkholes, and other naturally occurring topographic shifts. The coverage simply doesn’t exist. Well, bill, advancing in the General Assembly seeks to change that and to provide a measure of security for, at-risk property owners by establishing a state-run insurance program modeled after an existing state program that ensures properties against underground mine subsidence. The measure also provides resources for communities to help prevent and mitigate problems. The bill was approved in June by the House Environmental Resources and Energy Committee (ERE). Its lead sponsors, representatives, Valerie Gaydos and Emily Kinkead, belong to different political parties, but they represent neighboring districts that share the same susceptibility to landslides. And they join us now to talk about the legislation, the reasons behind it, and what it means to govern across party lines. Representative Gaydos. Representative Kinkead, welcome. Thanks for being on Pennsylvania legacies.

Emily Kinkead (02:01):

Thank you. Thank you for having us.

Valerie Gaydos (02:03)

Yeah, absolutely.

Josh Raulerson (02:04):

You both come from Western Pennsylvania. What makes this part of the state particularly susceptible, if that is the case to landslides, and are there other parts of Pennsylvania where, where this is a particular concern?

Emily Kinkead (02:15):

So Pennsylvania or, or Western Pennsylvania has a ton of red clay pockets. That was, is what makes Western Pennsylvania landslide grown because these red clay pockets will super saturate and, and then they will collapse. So this is a feature of Western Pennsylvania geography that, you know, when houses and buildings were initially being built, there would be no way that anybody would have known this or could have known that this was going to be a problem. Because, you know, way, way back when this wasn’t an issue, you weren’t seeing the super saturation of these red clay pockets. And so everything seemed stable. But now that we’re seeing intense rainstorms and just a lot more rainfall, pretty much anytime there’s a major rainstorm in Western Pennsylvania, there’s landslides and multiple of them. So, so that’s a big feature. The other aspect of it, and this is where you really get into kind of all over Pennsylvania, are things that are developed really kind of improperly and irresponsibly.

Emily Kinkead (03:22):

I know that Representative Gaydos had a pretty significant landslide in, in her district that impacted two houses where, you know, it’s, it seems to be that the, the person who built the housing community just didn’t you know, utilize bedrock and, and really just kind of filled in stuff. And so it, it collapsed. So you know, that’s kind of everywhere what this bill we have an amendment to the bill and it also includes sinkhole and, and sinkhole are also a problem, you know, in, in many, many places and for a lot of the same reasons. And so areas that aren’t necessarily landslide prone in Pennsylvania do have sinkhole. Some, some areas have both. And so this bill seeks to address both of those issues.

Valerie Gaydos (04:14):

The legislative in and of itself, to give it a little bit of background, is that it, it provides the landslide insurance fund within the Department of Treasury and what it’ll enable both municipalities and individuals to buy landslide insurance. Where right now it is absolutely not available to anybody. And as Representative Kinkead said is that particularly Western Pennsylvania is super susceptible to these landslides, adding what, what she had stated about you know, we have additional rainfall, but we also, when you’re talking about development, we, we have the highest amount of impervious surfaces in Pennsylvania with the amount of roadways and concrete and pavement, et cetera, which really exacerbates the entire situation. And, and that’s where the, the zoning comes in, is that, that it really is important for local municipalities to focus on zoning on to, to pre preempt disasters. And that’s something that Representative Kinkead ensure that was in the bill, is that, that it’s not just providing the landslide insurance, but it’s also providing incentives to make sure that responsible development is made.

Josh Raulerson (05:29):

Yeah. And I did want to talk about this mechanism for interfacing with local governments to kind of get, avoid some of these problems hopefully in the future. Before we get there, though, could, could we talk a bit about how landslides affect Pennsylvanian? Certainly Representative Gaydos in your district, as we heard, and really anybody, if, if you’re in Western pa, and you’ve probably seen it on the local news, but what are some of the effects of this situation on people in your district?

Valerie Gaydos (05:51):

Well, it’s not just homes, but it’s also roadways. So the homes may affect that when, when there was a landslide in Moon Township there were about three or four houses whose backyards just fell down the hillside. And yeah, that affects the homeowners, but what it did was it fell down onto a main roadway. And that’s where the municipality and the state comes involved, is that, that it, it, it really does cross a lot of jurisdictions when these landslides occur. And, and within this bill, it actually does provide assistance to those municipalities to fix those roadways. But the impact is people have to get the work. And if you are then evacuated out of your home, not only if you’re working from home, in this particular case, this, this homeowner was working out of his home, and then suddenly he was displaced. So that’s, that’s, that’s a whole, you know, he has put his entire life savings into a home and has to find something else while he’s still responsible for that mortgage. It’s financially devastating.

Emily Kinkead (06:57):

Yeah. And that’s really what it was that that prompted this, is that, again, there is no insurance that you can purchase that will cover the damage caused by landslides. And there are so many people who put, you know, their life savings into a house, because we are told over and over and over again that the way to build generational wealth is to purchase a home and be able to transfer that to your, you know, next of kin and, and kids and on and on. And there are families that we are seeing who, that a house has been in their family for generations, and then it’s gone overnight, just boom, done. And, and it’s not just one person’s house, but let’s say, you know, I had in my district a house that collapsed off the side of a hill, and, and you walk past where this happened, and you could see all of the contents of this family’s life scattered down the hill.

Emily Kinkead (07:51):

Now, thankfully, nobody was in the house when it collapsed, but it’s like, it’s their TV, there’s clothing, there’s, you know, everything was gone. But more than that, the houses on either side of them also were condemned and, and demolished. And so it’s not just one house, it’s, it’s multiple houses that end up getting condemned. And it’s, it’s such a problem because yeah, there’s no financial recovery for this, and you’re still responsible for a mortgage on a house that no longer exists. And you know, in another area of my district, there was a landslide that impacted a roadway, and a family of four lost their lives in a fire because emergency services couldn’t get to them in time because they couldn’t figure out how to pay for a, a way to, to, to remove this landslide and, and clear the roadway. So it’s, it’s, you know, it impacts the ability of emergency services to help people.

Emily Kinkead (08:51):

It impacts people’s abilities to, to get on with their lives. People have filed bankruptcy because of a house. There was a brand a new, newly married couple who bought their very first home — within a month, a landslide had had destroyed it, and they had to file for bankruptcy. So you’re just starting out in your life with your partner, and, and everything is gone overnight. And, and that’s the kind of devastation that we’re talking about. And so, you know, the ability for the state to step in and actually do what, you know — we’re, we’re bipartisan here. Representative Gaydos is a Republican; I’m a Democrat. And, and, but this is a recognition that like, regardless of how you view the government, like this is something that makes sense for what the government is supposed to be doing and taking care of because no commercial insurance is stepping up to cover landslides. And in other states where they have tried to make them like California instead of actually participating in the insurance market, the commercial insurance companies are pulling out entirely. So they still don’t have landslide coverage there. So it’s, it’s you know, this is where the state can step in and actually be helpful because private companies are not doing it.

Valerie Gaydos (10:11):

And you know, it, it also, it adds to blight when somebody just simply walks away from a home and who’s responsible for that. If you declare bankruptcy, then those houses just sit there until all the jurisdictions determine what to do with it. So this will help fix these things a lot faster than what we’ve seen in the past. And, and, and while the, the program won’t make people whole, we’re trying to get enough money into the fund to, to, to make it so that it is complete coverage. But this is certainly the first step to enable someone to at least get some funding to move into the next step, get out of their home, move their contents, et cetera.

Josh Raulerson (11:03):

I’d like to hear more about how the startup actually works. Like there is just some upfront funding that the state needs to provide. And then at some point I, I believe the program becomes sort of self-sustaining in a way. Could you explain how that works?

Emily Kinkead (11:15):

Yeah, so the program, we initially proposed it as being part of the DEP’s Mine Subsidence Insurance Fund. And it operates the same way as the Mine Subsidence Insurance Fund, but the DEP was opposed to the program because it, it might be hard and we don’t like change. And so we ended up shifting it into being its own separate fund. Because it’s its own separate fund. It will need some, some seed money to be able to get it, you know, up and running. So we proposed $10 million to, to just stand it up to get it, to get it ready to go. And then an initial cap on recovery for at, at $150,000, which is what the current mine subsidence insurance fund coverage is. But then as it grows over time and becomes more sustainable then, you know, the, the goal is that the board which is, you know, includes the, the state treasurer and the secretary, DCED and, and a number of other folks or, or their designees, they would, you know, every couple of years look at the, the viability of the fund and look at the need for, for coverage and reassess what the cap would be and, and kind of increase it over time.

Emily Kinkead (12:36):

Because yeah, $150,000 is not going make anybody whole if they lose their home but the goal is, at least initially, it’s enough money to get somebody out from under a mortgage and into a new home. Then at least they have stable housing, and then they can work on putting the rest of their life back together. So, you know, yeah, the goal would be hopefully, ultimately that this would be a way to actually provide, you know, full coverage for, for folks. But as we’re starting it up, we just want to, we at least want to give people something because right now there’s nothing. So that’s, so that’s the goal.

Valerie Gaydos (13:16):

So there, there’ll be the, the initial $10 million, and then I think it’s 5% of all the premiums will be collected and put aside until the board determines that, that there is enough money into the fund to then provide that catastrophic coverage. So it’ll be 5% of the, of the premiums will be set aside. So that’s where it ends up being self-sustaining, which I know that that was a lot of concern for a lot of people is that putting together this fund, you know, government oftentimes puts together these funds and, and they don’t have enough. And this is something that we, we made sure that is in there that will help set aside those premiums.

Josh Raulerson (13:57):

Looking at the, the Mine Subsidence Program as a sort of a model, I take it, that was another area where for whatever reason, the commercial market, just that, like, that coverage was not available. So there was a role for the government to, to play. I don’t know how closely that situation resembles the one that, that you’re addressing, but it seems as though mine subsidence program has been successful. Is that accurate?

Emily Kinkead (14:17):

Yeah, it’s been, it’s been incredibly successful. And, and you know, I think that it’s demonstrated by the fact that we’re not seeing widespread mind subsidence anymore. But that people who are in areas of, of, of likelihood of mind subsidence are informed about the option of buying mind subsidence insurance. Most people have it. It’s very affordable, and it is something that most people don’t use. The average payout from the mind, subsidence insurance fund is $38,000 now. We don’t touch the cap anymore. And I think that that’s really it. One of the things that, that our bill does in, in the hopes of kind of mitigating some of this landslide is incentives to municipalities to say, you know, if you implement a, a landslide in mitigation program you come up with something to help, whether it’s zoning, whether it is you know, holding properties that, that are landslide prone, restricting development in those areas, something, but you have a landslide mitigation plan as a municipality, then your residents would actually get a discount on their premiums for landslide insurance.

Emily Kinkead (15:35):

And so it’s a, it’s an incentive to help your residents while also encouraging municipalities to you know, think about what it is that, that they want to do. And my hope is that if we, you know, can get this landslide insurance across the finish line, that, you know, programs that are held by, you know, land banks or municipalities that could be landslide prone are able to at least be sold rather than just held, but with sort of a deed restriction that says, if you purchase this, if you own this, you have to maintain landslide insurance.

Josh Raulerson (16:12):

And that’s one of the things that I think makes this bill really interesting emphasizing this local government involvement, the technical assistance for local governments, better data, land use controls. That’s all great. But like, when you think about how many municipal entities we have in Pennsylvania, especially, you know, in the Pittsburgh area a lot of local governments in this state, how do you I guess how do you herd those cats? What’s your hope or, or your expectation that all of those, or some number will, you know, will participate?

Valerie Gaydos (16:39):

Well, it, you know, in the bill, it actually does require the board to take a look at where most of the vulnerabilities are. So just creating a, a map of where those vulnerabilities are will really help municipalities. And also, you know, even DEP and any of the, the approval processes for future development, it will really look at what that risk is for landslides, which, you know, I think in some of these cases where some of these, these housing projects were built without taking a closer look at landslide vulnerabilities, they just, they got built. So this, I think just by having that data and information and mapping it out, which is required in the bill will also help alleviate, you know, some of those pressures. I think.

Emily Kinkead (17:29):

But, and you know, since we’ve introduced this legislation, we have heard from municipality after municipality that said like, thank you. This is something that we need. We have so many residents that get impacted by landslides, and we don’t know what to do. We don’t know the funds to, to fix these things to help people. And, you know, they’re running into the same issues that everybody else is. They want to be helpful, but they don’t have the ability to be helpful because landslides are so expensive. So, you know, they’re like, this is great. This can help individual homeowners, property owners to address problems. And so they’re on board. We have gotten support from the Allegheny League of Municipalities. We’ve gotten support from the municipal league, the, the state municipal league. So there’s a lot of municipalities that are already on board, and they’re like, where do we sign up?

Emily Kinkead (18:21):

Can we, you know, buy it ourselves? Do we have, can we write a check? You know, so I don’t think that getting municipalities on board with this is really going to be the issue. I think it’s really going to be making sure that homeowners, the property owners understand the danger of landslides and the importance of actually purchasing the insurance once it’s, once it’s set up, because nobody thinks it’s going to happen to them until it happens. I, that’s, that’s always the problem with insurance. So I, I think that really making sure that the program, when it’s stood up, that that, you know, we’re aggressive about letting people know that they are in areas that are landslide prone, and that we would strongly recommend that they purchase landslide insurance. And also that, you know, by encouraging their municipality to adopt a, a landslide mitigation program for their municipality, it could decrease their premium payments. And, and so then encouraging residents to actually put pressure on the municipalities to say, Hey, this will be cheaper for me if you guys do this. Yeah. So I think that that’s how that, that would work.

Josh Raulerson (19:31):

Worth noting, as I think you do in the preamble to the legislation, that not just that landslides are prevalent, but there actually seems to be an increase across the state, you know, in recent years. And not only that, you look at more frequent and more intense rain events also projected. What’s the, the expectation for how Pennsylvania’s liability profile could change in the future? How is the program set up to adapt and meet those changes?

Emily Kinkead (19:55):

I mean, I think that’s where we get back to the board is is tasked with looking, you know, year over year at the sustainability of the fund versus the cost of, of landslides and increasing the, the coverage accordingly to make sure, sure, that the fund remains solvent, but that we’re, we’re increasing the, the coverage to, to a more adequate level to help people. We have gotten feedback from folks in the administration about, well, don’t you think that that money would be better spent on mitigation and prevention? And yeah, if this was the 1970s, but we missed the boat, we didn’t do what we needed to do in order to actually mitigate landslides, and now we are dealing with the consequences of the reality that landslides are, are going to be an ongoing issue for Western Pennsylvania for up across the northern part of the state. Sinkholes are going to be a thing everywhere. And all of this is related in many ways to the same kind of extreme weather events. So we have to do something, and it is too late to be worried about spending money on prevention. We have to help people with the, the reality that they’re going to be impacted by landslides.

Valerie Gaydos (21:16):

Representative Kinkead said that this is really, truly a bipartisan bill. We have sponsors on both sides of the aisle. We had both chairman of the Environmental Resources Committee voting yes. We had 20, what, 20 out of 25 of the members in the ERE committee vote yes for it. And it has proceeded to you know, hopefully next we’ll get it voted on the house floor. So I think it, it, it is recognized that it is a need, and it’s on, you know, it is a bipartisan partisan bill, and I believe bicameral, because we have a lot of interest in the Senate. So hopefully we’ll be able to get this passed shortly.

Josh Raulerson (21:55):

And, and when you talk about this being bipartisan legislation, I’m curious, how did the two of you end up working together on this? What’s that been like and what can we, you know, what can we learn other opportunities for getting things done in a bipartisan way, especially on the environment?

Emily Kinkead (22:09):

Well full credit to Representative Gaydos here. So this was last, last session. I was a freshman member and, and I actually kind of inherited this bill from Harry Readshaw, who had been working on it. And, and Anita Kulik had been working on it, and Jay Costa had been working on it. And you know, I inherited the bill and, and reintroduced it. And then was looking at the legislation going, gosh, you know, I would make some, some pretty significant changes to this because this feels clunky. This feels, you know, there’s, there’s some extra and unnecessary things. But also, you know, in talking to folks, it was like, oh, we just don’t have the political will to, to move it. It’s like, are you going to come to my district and explain that to people? But Representative Gaydos actually reached out to me and, and in 2022 and was like, how do we get your bill moving?

Emily Kinkead (23:07):

And I was like, I think I need to have a Republican or be a Republican <laugh> in order to get it moving. And, but I’m like, actually, you know, it, it would be interesting because you know, I, there’s, there’s some changes that I actually want to make to the bill now that I’ve spent some time in the legislature and I’ve, I’ve really like dived into this bill. So I would love to work with you on that. So we ended up actually reintroducing the bill at the end of last session in, in October. We had a, a press conference about it in front of a house that had come down a hill and actually it changed the waterway down the hill and, and was like flooding other homes. I was just like, look, this is the kind of stuff that we could address if, if people had landside insurance.

Emily Kinkead (23:56):

So we reintroduced it. We’re like, okay. And she was the prime sponsor. I was the co-prime. And, and you know, assuming that the Republicans were going to maintain the majority in the, you know, after the election in ’22 and then all of a sudden the Democrats were in the majority, and so kind of just flipped it back. So then I’m the prime and she’s the co-prime. But it’s been, you know, in, in many ways, like a lot of the energy that has come behind this is, is because Rep. Gaydos reached out to me and was like, we got to get this moving. And so you know, the, I think the partnership has been really great, and I think it’s a really great demonstration of the way in which we can work in a bipartisan fashion.

Emily Kinkead (24:41):

There are many things that we will not agree on, but the one thing I think we do agree on is what if we just governed <laugh> and, and we can set aside, you know, the, the things that people will always argue about and we can do things that just help people. And, and actually since then we have partnered on other legislation, including legislation to restore Medicaid dental coverage to, to folks. Because it’s just things that make sense. It just things that help people. And I think that that’s really where you find the common ground is, is, you know, maybe we’re not going to agree on the big sexy issues that everyone talks about, but I think that, that the majority of governing, the majority of, of what we do in Harrisburg is, is not that. It is just, you know, it is the small significant things that are going to, to make a, a huge difference.

Emily Kinkead (25:41):

And in my remarks to the ERE committee about this bill, I said, look, this bill is fundamentally going to be a, a footnote in the history of this body. It is not something that people are going to talk about that, you know, we have, have done this major thing, but this is going to transform people’s lives and that is the kind of work that we should be doing. And, and it’s that kind of work that I’ve really enjoyed working with Rep. Gaydos on because it’s that kind of stuff where it’s just, it’s the stuff in the middle that not a lot of people are, are rallying on the steps of the capitol about, but are going to be transformative for people’s lives.

Valerie Gaydos (26:25):

Yeah. I, I wouldn’t, I actually wouldn’t even call it in the middle. I think it’s exactly in the center you know, of, of attention. So like, it actually affects the largest amount of people and impact, the impact of landslides is just huge on communities. And that’s why teaming up together in a bipartisan way, this is really what we should be doing as government officials is finding what we have in common, not what we have in our differences, and that’s how we’re going to solve problems.

Josh Raulerson (27:01):

What a novel idea Representative Valerie Gaydos, Representative Emily Kinkead, thank you so much for, for being on Pennsylvania Legacies and thanks for your work on this bill.

Valerie Gaydos (27:10):

Thank you for having us.

Emily Kinkead (27:11)

Thank you

Josh Raulerson: (27:16):

Representatives. Emily Kinkead and Valerie Gaydos, both of Allegheny County, are the lead sponsors of House Bill 589, which would establish a Landslide Insurance Program for Pennsylvania, a measure PEC is proud to support. You can keep tabs on it when the General Assembly reconvenes this fall by bookmarking the bill tracker on PEC’s website at pecpa.org. On our policy page, you’ll find up to date information on hundreds of legislative and regulatory proposals related to the environment and outdoor recreation and other topics, including their current status, PEC’s position, and upcoming votes and hearings, and much more. That’s on the policy section of the PEC website, where you’ll find much more on PEC’s programmatic work in watershed restoration and protection, reforestation energy and climate policy, outdoor recreation and conservation focused economic development. It’s all at pecpa.org, pecpa.org. You can find us on Facebook, X, and Instagram as well. And sign up for our monthly, in case you missed it, newsletter again on the [email protected]. Check back in two weeks for another edition of Pennsylvania Legacies. Until then, for the Pennsylvania Environmental Council, I’m Josh Raulerson, and thanks for listening.