New York City’s Department of Environmental Protection has announced an agreement-in-principle to cease purchasing land in its upstate watershed and leave Catskill-area waters under increased local control.
An Oct. 17 media release from Delaware County Board of Supervisors Chairperson Tina Mole stated: “The Delaware County Board of Supervisors is proud to report we have been successful in negotiating an agreement with New York City to cease the acquisition of large open space parcels in the West of Hudson watershed priority areas 3 and 4.” Priority areas 3 and 4 cover much of Delaware County, nearly all of Schoharie and Greene counties and portions of Sullivan and Ulster counties.
“This significant change in policy is a result of years of work that provides for scientifically based programming that has a more profound and direct benefit to water quality than land acquisition,” the release continues. “The premise behind purchasing large tracts of land that have the potential for adversely impacting water quality, if developed, is to deter development that may impair the resource. However, based on growth trends, local land use policies (and) the lack of infrastructure and transportation, the threat of harmful development is greatly diminished. Therefore, the need for large scale land acquisition in the rural areas of the West of Hudson watershed is reduced significantly. Additionally, the regulatory requirements for septic and stormwater development substantially mitigates any possible contaminates from private development that may occur on lands within the watershed further minimizing any potential for threat to the water resource.”
The Memorandum of Agreement allowing the city’s purchase of upstate lands was signed in 1997. Since then, New York City has purchased more than 220 square miles of land in the Catskills, or, as John Milgrim, director of external affairs with the New York City Environmental Protection Bureau of Water Supply, estimated, roughly 150,000 acres.
According to an Oct. 15 (Albany) Times-Union article, New York City residents get water from two sets of reservoirs: “one in the lower Hudson Valley, and a second, larger set in the Catskills.”
Milgrim noted that, though “the majority of Delaware County is priority areas 3 and 4, there are (parts of Delaware County) that are 1 and 2, which are fairly close to the reservoirs, and those areas will remain a focus, in terms of acquisitions.”
In the statement, Mole called the agreement a welcome change.
“The shift in policy is a result of many years of analysis and a comprehensive understanding of how land acquisition benefits water quality and the impacts it has had on community vitality,” she said. “This change is welcomed as we grapple with issues such as a lack of affordable workforce housing, a limited amount of capacity to extend or develop municipal sewer and water systems, an aging and decreasing population base and an increase in the local cost of living. Through the most recent stakeholder negotiations we have worked with our watershed partners to address these issues as part of the overall purpose of the MoA. Delaware County has made a clear and direct argument supported through scientific studies that focused programs such as precision feed management, best management practices for agricultural and stream programs, flood mitigation and infrastructure resiliency, has had a measurable and direct benefit to both water quality and community vitality.”
Shelly Johnson-Bennett, director of the Delaware County Department of Planning and Watershed Affairs and the county’s public information officer, called the agreement a “new phase in watershed protection and our partnership with the city.”
“When New York City purchases a piece of property under the guise that it’s needed to protect water quality, it creates a disconnect in the community,” she said. “It comes with a lot of restrictions, like that land can’t be developed and it becomes open space in perpetuity, which takes that land out of development in the future, for things like housing, which is a major issue for us right now. It doesn’t allow for utility lines to run above- or below(ground) … so it just takes it out of use for a multitude of things that a private entity could use it for. And, although the city pays taxes on that land, it would always be less (than from the tax base).”
Johnson-Bennett said the land purchases also have ecological ramifications.
“It is important to be able to preserve as much land, for vitality and growth, rather than the city managing it,” she said. “And the city program doesn’t include a lot of stewardship. Some land might allow for hiking or hunting, but, for the most part, they’re not regularly foresting it or maintaining it, so now this open space that’s forever wild is more open to forest fire, which becomes an issue for us. If there’s a forest fire, that’s our local emergency services that have to deal with that.
“Scientifically, that land is not imperative to water quality, because of distance from the city,” Johnson-Bennett continued. “The rules and regulations for septic and stormwater already mitigate the potential (for contaminants). So, there’s not really scientific evidence that this land is needed to protect land and water quality.”
“As the DEP, we’ve been working through a collaborative process guided by science, specifically with the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine,” Milgrim said. “The DEP intends to focus resources on programs and acquisitions that are most beneficial to water quality, while continuing to make investments that enhance the socioeconomic vitality of our watershed communities. We’ve been in negotiations with all the stakeholders for well over a year.”
Johnson-Bennett said “people who have been around a long time are supportive” of the policy shift. Milgrim, too, said, while “the agreement hasn’t been finalized, this part of the agreement has everybody’s buy-in.”
“They understand that their ability as a community to support or grow their tax base is important, so they want these lands where they can be developed,” Johnson-Bennett said. “A single-family home on 50 acres is still a greater tax value to a community than 50 acres with no ability to build on it. Being able to retain as much private ownership and potential for development long term, or just the plain ability to work with a private landowner to do search and rescue and manage the land, is much more beneficial to a local community than for the city to maintain it.”
Jeffrey Taggart, a longtime Franklin resident, director on the Delaware County Soil & Water Conservation District Board and former town of Franklin supervisor, said, while in favor of the agreement, he would like to see it more pervasively implemented.
“Half of the water for New York City comes from Delaware County, so if they control the waterways, they’re going to control us, and I’m totally against selling any more property to them,” he said. “I can’t tell you what percentage of (land) Delaware County has lost to the city; they’re the biggest landowner in Delaware County, no doubt about it.
“I’ve been a proponent to fight the city as much as we can, because they’ve already gotten a lot more than I think they should’ve,” he said. “It’s their water supply — and that is life or death; you can’t live without good water. The bottom line is, we don’t want to not supply it, we just want to have some control over our own dealings and we want to develop under our control.”
Johnson-Bennett said DEP Assistant Commissioner David Warne called the agreement “effective immediately.”
“Nothing is signed on paper yet, but it will be part of the next water supply permit issued,” she said. “It is decided. We have heard directly from the commissioner and his deputy commissioner that this is the intention of the city.”
“The whole agreement will become part of the new water supply permit, which is due in 2025,” Milgrim said.