The 1997 New York City Watershed Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) is an historic agreement between New York City, New York State, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, watershed towns, watershed counties, and five environmental organizations, including Riverkeeper.

The MOA has three elements that together allowed New York City to obtain a filtration waiver from EPA and avoid filtering the Catskill/Delaware water supply. These three elments are:

• Land Acquisition Program
  
  
• Watershed Rules and Regulations
  
  
• Partnership Programs