Published in February 1999.

A public safety crisis threatens New York City's drinking water. The police division of the New York City Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), frequently referred to as the Watershed Police, has been seriously undermined by mismanagement, institutionalized neglect and deliberate harassment. As a consequence, the Watershed Police are unable to perform their critical function: protecting the City's water supply from pollution, vandalism and terrorism.

DEP's Watershed Police force has two separate divisions. The Environmental Enforcement Division (E.E.D.) is charged with patrolling the City's vast watershed to prevent and remedy insults to water quality such as failing septic systems, oil spills and illegal dumping. The second division, the DEP Security Patrol, is charged with safeguarding the water supply infrastructure, which includes 19 reservoirs, 3 controlled lakes, hundreds of miles of aqueducts and numerous sensitive gatehouses. Neither of these two Police units is functioning effectively.

This report outlines the many institutional and administrative failings that precipitated this crisis. It also makes fifteen recommendations for strengthening environmental enforcement and enhancing water supply protection. Among other things, the DEP must:

• Hire more officers for both the E.E.D. and the Security Patrol and retain trained officers by raising police pay and offering promotions.
  
• Adequately equip the E.E.D., which is presently under-equipped for even the most basic clerical supplies.
  
• Provide the E.E.D. with automobiles and boats necessary for routine patrols and investigations.
  
• Initiate aerial patrols of the watershed to detect security breaches and environmental insults.
  
• Institute policies to protect its E.E.D. officers from internal harassment.
  
• Strengthen gatehouse and reservoir security and develop contingency plans for repairing damaged or failing aqueducts.

A demoralized, poorly trained, understaffed and ill-equipped DEP police force undermines watershed pollution prevention, endangers the City?s ability to avoid a costly federal filtration mandate and jeopardizes the security of the water supply of more than nine million New Yorkers. This situation demands immediate attention. The Bloomberg Administration should, at the very least, implement the fifteen recommendations enumerated in this report.