From the POV of downstate stakeholders (i.e. New York City and surrounding residents):
New York City is home to more than 9 million urban dwellers, as well as countless businesses that thrive on the one billion plus gallons of clean drinking water traveling from Upstate New York to New York City each day. The quality of our drinking water is among the best in the world, and keeping it that way requires a lot of management, which is why it is important to ensure the protection of the upstate watersheds. If this doesn’t continue to happen, the city will be forced to build a filtration plant to filter the incoming water supply, which is estimated to cost upwards of $10 billion to construct and $100 million annually to operate, which would undoubtedly be reflected in our taxes, as well as in a water rate increase of approximately 30%, burning an even deeper hole in New Yorkers’ pockets.
According to plaNYC, New York is currently implementing the Watershed Protection Program, which is “a unique strategy that combines protection, land acquisition, and environmentally-sustainable economic development to maintain the high quality of our water supply”. According to plaNYC, this program will also work with local stakeholders in the form of loans to local businesses to support tourism, hospitality, manufacturing and other areas, as well as rehabilitating residential and community septic systems around the watersheds.
Another huge part of this watershed maintenance and protection initiative has to do with protecting New York’s water supply from hydrofracking. Since some of our watershed lay above to Marcellus Shale, numerous gas companies are trying to get permission from local authorities to extract this natural gas. However, this will undoubtedly be harmful to our water supply and if this were to take place, a filtration system would definitely be necessary, which is another reason the state vehemently opposes natural gas fracturing on our watershed land.
Although this maintenance program may be costly and somewhat of a burden to upstate residents in terms of land use and development, the pros far outweigh the cons, and especially costs of building a filtration system, which is the only plausible alternative for now. It is important to maintain the quality of our drinking water that billions of New Yorkers are used to and depend on everyday and try to offset potential filtration costs as much as possible.
“PlaNYC 2030 – The Plan – Water Supply.” PlaNYC 2030 – The Plan – Water Supply. N.p., n.d. <http://www.nyc.gov/html/planyc2030/html/theplan/watersupply.shtml>.
