New York City Can Buy More Watershed Land, State Says
By: Mireya Navarro
An article from Green-A Blog About Energy and the Environment
February 16, 2011
Summary
This article is all about how New York City is buying land so it can keep protecting its watershed. On Wednesday, February 16th, the state of New York announced that NYC is allowed to keep buying land in an effort to protect the Catskill and Hudson River Valley Watershed. An agreement was made between the EPA and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation that will allow New York to keep purchasing land for the next 15 years.
Currently, 100,000 acres of the New York watershed (1 million acres in total) are protected by the city. In addition, 200,000 more acres are owned by the state. Right there is 35 percent of the watershed land being protected. The main reason New York cares so much about its watersheds is that by buying the land and protecting it prevents the city from spending 10 billion dollars on a filtration plant. Already 400 million dollars have been spent buying watershed land, and 140 million dollars are reserved for upcoming purchases. New York City expects to continue buying land at a rate of about 10,000 acres a year.
NYC’s environmental protection commissioner, Caswell Holloway, said that she believes the most effective way to maintain high water quality is by protecting water at its’ source. She feels that the established agreement will help to do just that.
Finally, the agreement has allotted 100 million dollars to be spent on programs that help limit water pollution. An example of this is repairing septic systems.
In conclusion, New York City recently reached an agreement that will allow it to continue purchasing land in order to protect its watershed in the Catskill and Hudson River Valley. By buying and protecting different areas of the watershed, NYC will save 10 billion dollars because a filtration plant won’t have to be purchased and installed. Also, 100 million dollars is reserved for spending on limiting water pollution programs. A lot of people are happy with this newfound agreement.
Opinion/Reflection
I personally think that even though New York may be purchasing the land for a selfish purpose (they won’t have to buy a 10 billion dollar filtration plant if they can protect their waterways), the program will have a positive effect on the environment. Since thousands of acres of the watershed have already been bought and protected, the pollution rate (from things like littering) will have gone down and continue to go down. And if the watershed is protected, people can’t harm the plant and animal species living there. I feel that this is really great for I hate when animals are harmed because of human actions. It’s just not fair to them.
The thing that makes me wonder though is that even if this watershed area is protected, can’t pollution still get in the water? I mean I’m sure that the protection efforts are good and all, but let’s face it, not every area of the watershed can be monitored all hours in a day. Also, the areas of the watershed that haven’t been purchased and protected yet will still experience pollution. Pollution travels in water, and waterways in watersheds are connected, so won’t pollution still wind up in the protected areas of land? I honestly think that someone should further look into this, since the water people in NYC are drinking water that might not be safe (it isn’t treated).
This relates to class because we discussed before what can happen if watersheds are polluted, and how badly humans can be affected if they drink contaminated water. It’s terrible to think about what can happen to people who drink polluted water (like the poor man who suffered from arsenic poisoning), but it’s a reality that we all need to face. Plus, I feel that it is the government’s responsibility to clean the people’s drinking water, because no one should have to suffer on another’s behalf. If the government just managed the water properly in the first place, then nothing bad would happen.
Ask Questions
1) What is your opinion on the agreement New York City made with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation?
2) Do you think that New York is buying the land to protect the watersheds, its' citizens, or for its' own self interest?
3) How long do you think it will take before New York is able to purchase all of the land in its watersheds? Will it be before the 15 year agreement is over?
4) Do you agree with what Caswell Holloway said about the program?
5) Can you think of any other examples of programs limiting water pollution that the 100 million dollars can be spent upon?
Graphic
The graphic at the top of the page clearly shows what the Catskill/Delaware (Hudson River Valley) Watershed looks like.
I agree with you that New York is only buying up this land just so they can save a few bucks. I also think this plan, while good for the environment, could backfire royally on them as from the article it sounds like they are buying this land so they do not have to treat the water, and if anyone pollution from an unprotected watershed gets into one that they use, then we will see some serious health problems in New York City.
ReplyDeleteBLOGGER LOST MY LAST COMMENT! UGH! You all may want to copy your comments before posting them.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, here's an abbreviated version:
I don't know what anyone else thinks of when they think of city water (or public water in general) but it seems to have a stigma of being pretty gross, even though we learned in class that it isn't. But if I knew that my city was instituting this sort of program, I would be able to drink the water with ease. When I turned on my tap, I would have peace of mind in knowing that the water I was about to put in my body was clean and wouldn't hurt me.
I love this program. Love, love, love. It's just so logical. Why waste billions of dollars to fix a problem when you can spend a mere hundreds of millions (still a big number, but just a fraction of the cost of a filtration plant) to prevent the problem from occurring in the first place? This is definitely the most responsible, efficient way to handle water quality, and I wish more places would institute a similar program.
Answers:
1) I'm not sure I've heard enough about the program to form a fully-informed opinion about it, but so far I love it.
2) Protecting New York City's citizens is the city's self-interest, and that definitely what they are doing here, no doubt about it. But who cares? Protecting your citizens isn't a bad thing, especially since this doesn't seem to have any negative effects for others. It sounds like a definite win-win. And even if it was selfish, the program is still going to have good results for everyone.
3) Currently New York City or New York State own 300,000 of the million acres (30%). If New York moves continues to buy 10,000 acres a year, as it plans, then it will take seventy more years for them to purchase the entire watershed, so they'll miss the end of the fifteen year plan by a couple years. They'll either have to buy more land every year, get an extension on the plan, or a combination of both. To own the entire watershed by the end of the fifteen years, the city will have to buy approximately 46,666 acres per year. If they extended the deadline to twenty years they would need to purchase 35,000 acres a year, or 28,000 acres every year for 25 years.
4) I absolutely agree. I wish more public officials ran things this way, we would be better off.
5) I can think of other programs (education, tax initiatives, legislation efforts, etc), but none that are more worthy. I believe that is the best option out there.
Kate I agree with what you said in response to question three. After I read the article, I was a little confused as to why they said that 35% of the land was bought, but I figured I should write it that way because that was what the article said.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, do you know if all the land they are buying is being protected, or just the land's water?
ReplyDeleteReflection
ReplyDeleteI can see that trying to save money may seem selfish, but when you think about it, the cost of paying all the workers who will be protecting the watershed will over time exceed $10 B for a filtration plant. And the fact that there will be more job openings for the wetland protection that the plant (I'm assuming) will help the unemployment rate in New York go down a bit. As for pollution still getting into the watershed, I'm assuming part of protecting the watershed will be reducing sources of pollution in the watershed.
Responses
1) Ba-da bum bum bum, I'm lovin' it!
2) (First off, since I'm a grammar Nazi, "its' " is not a word. The possessive form of "it" is "its." God, we need better English teachers in this country! )
I think part of the motivation DOES come from trying to save $10 B on the plant but since they had given themselves the option of a plant or buying/protecting the watershed, obviously the root cause WAS public interest.
3) New York may not need/want to buy all the land in the watershed. They may only need to buy land downriver of wetlands so that nothing gets into the river past the watershed's natural filters. They could leave the upriver land alone for the most part and allow just enough pollution that the wetlands will filter it all out by the time in reaches the Big Apple.
4) I agree completely with that statement. If the water is kept from being polluted in the first place, then you don't need to worry too much about treating it before it's used for drinking water.
5) There really aren't any other options. You can either build an expensive plant to filter out polluted water or you can spend money protecting your watershed so it doesn't get polluted in the first place.
Kate, I'm not entirely sure, but what I took from the article is that they're protecting the land and its waterways.
ReplyDeleteKate you are right about losing comments. I put questions in a seperate comment and Blogger lost them all so here are my questions posted again.
ReplyDelete1) I think that despite the maybe not so noble reasons for doing it (such as to save money instead of actually trying to save the environment) it is a really good thing both for New York and for the environment.
2) New York is doing it for its' own gain and its' own intrest. The fact that it helps the people and the environment is just a good side effect.
3) I beleive not for them to take all 70% in 15 years they would have to buy about 4.67% (46,700 acres) per year and that doesn't seem like a reasonable amount for them to buy. Maybe in a longer term deal say maybe 40-50 years but not in 15 years.
4) Yes because despite the reasons behind the decision, this will probably still help tremendously.
5) There may be other programs it can be spent on but none of them have to do with controlling water pollution. This is the best option for controlling water pollution they have.
While protecting the watersheds is doing good, I don't think it's worth giving up filtered water. Caswell Holloway says that the best way to maintain high water quality is to fix it at its source. While doing this is most indeed effective, so much more can happen after the source. Just because you're protecting the watersheds doesn't mean they're 100% safe to drink from. Just because you're preventing some pollution doesn't mean you can stop all of it. While this deal has done good for many people and saved a lot of money, it's still bad that the largest city in the U.S. could be getting water poisoning.
ReplyDelete1. I honestly don't know what New York's economy is like, but if they couldn't afford a filtration device then doing this is better then doing nothing. (Although they were forced to do one or the other, so nothing wasn't really an option). If they could afford a filtration device, they should have bought one.
2. Definitely in its own self interest. If they cared about the citizens, they probably would have bought the filtration device. They also don't care about the watersheds, it was just the much less expensive alternative.
3. Well, if you do the math according to the information mentioned, it should take about 70 years, which will be way after the 15 year agreement is over.
4. While cleaning up the source is probably one the most important things to do, it's not perfect. Watersheds still could get dirty very easily.
5. Making sure people have the proper tools to boil their water, cause you know, it's not being filtered.