Reservoir filtration waiver renewed
The state Department of Health has renewed the waiver that keeps New York City from having to build a costly upstate filtration system for water drawn from the reservoirs in the city’s Catskill and Delaware supplies.
Among the requirements of the new “Filtration Avoidance Determination,” or FAD, is the city building a new wastewater treatment plant for Shokan, a hamlet in the Ulster County town of Olive. The new FAD is to be in effect for 10 years. State Health Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker said in a prepared statement: “The 2017 New York City Filtration Avoidance Determination endeavors to safeguard public health and provide access to safe drinking water for the residents of New York City and other upstate communities reliant upon this water, while promoting good watershed stewardship practices through comprehensive, locally implemented programs.”
The city’s upstate reservoirs, including the Ashokan in Ulster County, provide drinking wa-
ter to 9.5 million people.
About 90 percent of New York City’s drinking water comes from the reservoirs in the Catskill and Delaware systems. The rest comes from the Croton system.
New York City is one of only five large cities in the nation with a surface water system that does not require filtration, the state health department said. The cost of New York City creating an upstate filtration system has been estimated at $12 billion.
The new FAD mandates
that New York City:
• Expedite the design and construction of a new wastewater treatment facility for the hamlet of Shokan.
• Expand the Small Business Septic System Program in the west-of-the-Hudson watershed.
• Implement agricultural best-management practices that have been identified on watershed farms.
• Protect streamside lands by using the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program and the Streamside Acquisition Program.
• Pay for engineering studies to address areas of poorly functioning septic systems in reservoir basins in the east-of-the-Hudson watershed.
• Co-locate watershed protection staff with the Catskill Watershed Corp. in a new office located inside the watershed.
Also, the health department
said, existing watershed protection programs that are reinforced in the new FAD include:
• Mitigating flooding in watershed communities to protect water quality.
• Acquiring and managing watershed lands that provide water quality protection.
• Stream restoration and management to stabilize eroding streambanks.
The state Department of Health and New York City Department of Environmental Protection, the agency that operates the reservoirs, have worked together for more than a year to reach the terms of the new FAD and did so in consultation with the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency and the state Department of Environmental Conservation, according to a health department statement.
Department of Environmental Protection spokesman Adam Bosch said the city will commit an estimated $1 billion over the next decade to comply with the FAD.
New York City’s compliance with the new FAD will be reviewed by the state Department of Health in 2021, and a compliance assessment report will be issued by July 31, 2021.
Online: www.health.ny.gov/environmental/water/drinking/nycfad