A major point of controversy that has arisen between the groups on opposite sides of the watershed development/ water filtration and land regulation battle is the principle of land ownership. The ability for New York City to claim eminent domain over watersheds physically outside of its boarders leads to expected backlash with good reason. Many of the residents of the watershed communities rely upon their land ownership for a living. Expanding upon business and housing for an overall increasing population is one of a few standing issues in this debate. At the same time, residents of upstate New York are not without concern for their water supply. Thus, a collaborative effort to compromise between the interests of both those who are directly and indirectly impacted by the watershed management poses the best mutually beneficial solution to the issue at hand.
It was the case that NYC held the bargaining card to acquire indirect property rights to the Catskills and Delaware watershed. Under the Filtration Avoidance Determination, the City sought to dodge the filtering requirement of the SWTR that would cost around $6 billion (145) and take control over watershed areas restricting them from land development. However, in order to go with the FAD, NYC would needed the compliance of the watershed communities, which owned around 75% of the land in question. With negotiation at a stalemate, collaboration was the only means of progression.
The Memorandum of Agreement (1997) was the cooperative agreement that sought both regulation and economic benefits with regards to all interested parties by establishing the Watershed Protection Partnership Council for program oversight. “The Collaboration”, as with any compromise had its benefits and trade-offs. Such trade-offs include the required purchase of permits by businesses, which for the most part have been granted, as well as the acquisition of potential development lands by the city- lowering the opportunity for new investment (145). Despite this, the watershed communities have benefited economically from this bargain as well. The City’s investment in the upstate land has pumped more money into the local economy after spending the better part of a $1.2 billion budget designated for watershed purchases (146). Watershed communities also benefited through agreed upon compensation spending by NYC. An example of such was a program put in place to upgrade the wastewater treatment plants with costs totaling in the hundreds of millions. Under this program the City provided “$10 million to local governments to do as they saw fit” (146).
Overall “The Collaboration” ultimately benefitted those seeking to develop land in the watershed communities because the stimulated economy saw greater job expansion and growth. Acquiescing land to NYC for filtration improved water quality while strengthening the spread out and thin economy of the watershed communities leading to an advantage gain by both opposing parties.
Joan Hoffman, Watershed shift: Collaboration and employers in the New York City Catskill/Delaware Watershed from 1990–2003, Ecological Economics, Volume 68, Issues 1–2, 1 December 2008, Pages 141-161, ISSN 0921-8009, 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2008.02.011.
(http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800908001043)
