The Honorable Charles Lemmond
Chair, State Government Committee
Senate Box 203020
Harrisburg, PA  17120-3020

Re: House Bill #2583 - Hazleton State Soil- Official Soil of PA

Dear Honorable Lemmond:

The Pennsylvania Association of Professional Soil Scientists (PAPSS) is requesting your support for House Bill #2583 selecting and designating the Hazleton Soil Series as the state soil of Pennsylvania.  Hazleton was selected because:

¨       This soil is named for a location in Pennsylvania where it was first identified and characterized.

¨       The Hazleton soil is more extensive than other soils named for locations in Pennsylvania with over 1.5 million acres mapped in 34 of the 67 counties (51 percent).

¨       Other state symbols thrive on areas of Hazleton soils such as the state flower (Mountain Laurel), state tree (Eastern Hemlock), state bird (Ruffed Grouse) and state animal (Whitetail Deer).

The Hazleton soil series, Pennsylvania's state soil, will be featured along with 52 other soils in the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History (NMNR). The Smithsonian Soils Exhibit is slated to open to the Washington DC museum's 6-9 million annual visitors in 2006. 

All these activities will contribute to the 18^th World Congress of Soil Science international meetings to be held in Philadelphia on July 9-15, 2006.  Philadelphia was selected over other cities for this international meeting (held every 4 years and lastly held in the United States in 1960) because of the presence of strong soils programs within Pennsylvania.

Since planning is critical for these upcoming national events, we encourage you to proceed with passage of this bill.  Specifically, we request your support to have this bill brought forth to the Pennsylvania Senate for a favorable vote.

Please support HB 2583 and contact me if you have any questions or need additional information. 

Sincerely,