Government agencies like the NYDEP and the EPA have a common goal with the Catskills and Delaware watersheds, which is having suitable water quality to meet the criteria of the FAD. The protection of watersheds and the surrounding ecosystems from harmful development is the best method that benefits most stakeholders in the land. In order to comply with the SWTR, there are only two options for New York State to take, filtration or protection. The costs associated to watershed protection is much smaller than the costs to filtrate; it can cost 6 billion dollars to create a filtration facility and about 300 million dollars per year to maintain it. The most important factor that makes watershed protection very crucial to government agencies is the cost, but watersheds also provide plenty ecosystem services.
The journal article, “Watershed protection: Capturing the benefits of nature’s water supply services” by Sandra Postel and Barton Thompson Jr. provides useful information on how healthy watersheds benefit growing communities and urban areas. They examined watersheds around the country and the world to see what was done and how communities are taking action to protect the watersheds. Expenses are the main determinant in protecting watersheds. NYC spent 1.5 billion over 10 years in order for the Catskills/Delaware watershed to avoid the capital and operating costs (6 bil, 300mil/year) of filtration. The reason that NY/C is able to save so much money is due to the past agreements between the stakeholders in the area.
In the Catskills/Delaware watershed area, ¾ of the lands are still forested and ¾ of the lands are privately owned. The journal article emphasizes the importance of forests and undeveloped lands. These factors are important because forested and undeveloped areas are much better are protecting the watershed, due to the runoff moderation and purification provided by forests. Data from 27 US watershed systems show that if 60% of the watersheds are still forested then treatment costs will be low and treatment costs would increase to 211% if only 10% of forests remain. This makes forests extremely important to the watersheds and it makes land ownership extremely important. Also, agricultural practices must be maintained efficiently because nitrogen runoff from agriculture is very high and can lead to reduced water quality NYC has to continue to acquire land in order to stop development from occurring, or collaborate with other stakeholders. Land acquisition costs are not very high; within 5 years of the starting to buy land, it only cost NYC $94 million to prevent filtration. If filtration occurs, taxes will increase for a major of the populations. In Denmark and Germany, average cost of drinking water is 3 times higher than the US due to the filtration needed.
It is in the government’s best interest to continue watershed protection. Cooperation must be achieved with lumber companies, land owners and farmers in order to prevent watershed contamination and maintain water quality. NYC already encountered a problem with the Croton watershed being overly developed, and had to build a 687 million dollar plant to filter water. All of this data on costs and savings support the government’s cause. For New York, government ownership of lands and incentive payments to protect the watersheds are the most cost effective way to protect watersheds.
Source:Postel, Sandra L. and Barton H. Thompson. 2005. “Watershed Protection: Capturing the Benefits of Nature’s Water Supply Services.” Natural Resources Forum 29 (2): 98-108.
