This week, Delaware County leaders moved to protect local watershed programs currently funded through the state permit that allows New York City to own land in the county which contains the city’s water supply.
The Delaware County Board of Supervisors passed a resolution Wednesday, Sept. 24 advocating for the protection of this funding, which may not be included in the draft of the new state permit.
The resolution stated that in the draft permit, the New York City Department of Environmental Protection “limited its funding obligations,” and further stated that DEP has informally expressed its intent to decrease funding obligations in the West of Hudson Watershed to “focus funding on new emergent threats to water quality.”
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“The concern here in Delaware County is that the city may be pulling back from some of those partnership programs,” said Nicholas Carbone, the county’s director of watershed affairs. “They want to make sure that those programs are contained in that water supply permit and that they need to be funded in the future.”
The water supply permit, which went into effect in 2010 and expires this year, allows New York City to purchase land outside its own municipality.
New York City does not filter its own water, said Jason Merwin, the executive director of the Catskill Watershed Corporation. The city has to prove it can keep its water clean at the source, Merwin said, which is based in the Catskills and much of Delaware County. It additionally has to show cooperation from local stakeholders.
The corporation was established to make funding decisions on behalf of local communities. It has issued more than $20 million to a variety of applicants throughout the watershed, Merwin said.
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Locals agreed to the regulations if the city would fund several different watershed protection and partnership programs to offset the associated costs, including septic system rehabilitations and replacements, stormwater retrofits and new sewage treatment infrastructure facilities, among several others.
“It would be impossible for the these towns and villages to maintain a wastewater treatment plant without being subsidized by the city,” Carbone said. “You’re talking about small communities that couldn’t possibly fund or maintain wastewater treatment systems to the level that they need to be to keep them in compliance for the next 20 years.”
The city does not manage the programs and has no veto power. It just provides funding, Merwin said.
The new permit is coming out soon, Carbone said, called the water withdrawal permit.
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Carbone said stakeholders have been in the negotiation process with the city for almost four years regarding the terms of the permit application. The negotiations were focused on land acquisition, he added.
DEP made a proclamation that it would no longer purchase land in the center of Delaware County. Carbone said this made people living in the county “very happy.”
Another program that was negotiated over the past few years, he said, was the streamside acquisition program. The county was opposed to city ownership of the the stream corridors, as it felt there were many layers of regulation by the DEP and DEC. Developments and septic systems were barred within 100 feet of a stream course.
He said a few months ago, a hold was put on the negotiations and the DEP made the application for the water withdrawal permit without the county knowing what was included in the draft permit.
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Merwin said the county is requesting that the state DEPartment of Environmental Conservation press pause on reviewing the water withdrawal permit application to allow stakeholders to return to the negotiation table with the DEP.
A DEP spokesperson said the DEP also is waiting on the DEC’s draft permit for review, as the DEC is the “regulatory agency, adding that “critical watershed programs in place are already enshrined in the separate filtration avoidance determination (FAD) which remains in effect.”
“Separately, last year DEP announced an end to core land acquisition purchases covering the vast majority of the Catskills region — a position that remains unchanged,” the spokesperson said. “DEP also stands by any agreements it has already committed to in the year-plus of negotiations that have taken place, and has put that in writing to the stakeholders.”
“DEP stands ready to continue discussions with all parties related to the DEC permit and other issues and stepped away only when talks stalled due to irreconcilable differences between Delaware County and some environmental advocates,” the statement continued.
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A spokesperson for the DEC was unable to immediately comment Friday, Sept. 26.
Seventeen towns and seven villages in Delaware County signed the 1997 New York City Watershed Memorandum of Agreement. Carbone said it was a two part agreement based on the protection of water, the city’s water supply, but also promised “community sustainability.” The partnership programs were part of the MOA.
About 70% percent of the land that was purchased by the city through the permit is in Delaware County, Carbone said. The county has a half million acres in the New York City watershed, the West of Hudson Watershed. The total West of the Hudson watershed is about 1.2 million acres, Carbone said, almost half of which is in the county.
“DEP and its staff have been excellent partners,” the resolution stated. “Delaware County is extremely proud of the accomplishments of that partnership and anticipates another 28 years of partnership in the development and implementation of Watershed Water Quality Protection Program.”
[SRC] https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/delaware-county-urges-city-uphold-035900356.html
