Riverkeeper: DOH Fails to Give Lower Esopus Creek Communities Full Opportunity to Participate in Process of Revising Filtration Avoidance Determination

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

DOH denies upstate communities written request for local public hearing

Ossining, NY – August 26, 2013 – This past Friday afternoon, the New York State Department of Health (DOH) released draft revisions to New York City’s Filtration Avoidance Determination (FAD), outlining measures necessary to protect the Catskill Mountain source of the unfiltered drinking water that nine million residents of New York City and Ulster, Orange, Putnam, and Westchester counties rely on. Riverkeeper, in partnership with Lower Esopus municipal and county officials and other NYC drinking watershed stakeholders, will be reviewing the nearly 100-page FAD revision document and preparing comprehensive comments during DOH’s 45-day comment period.

However, what is readily apparent is that DOH’s proposed FAD revisions barely mention the Lower Esopus Creek and the Ulster County communities it runs through. As currently authorized under the 2007 FAD, the New York City Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has been diverting water too muddy to be used as drinking water to the Lower Esopus. Following is a statement by Kate Hudson, Watershed Program Director at Riverkeeper:

“DOH and DEP contend that the turbid, muddy releases from the Ashokan Reservoir to the Lower Esopus Creek through the Ashokan Waste Channel have nothing to do with the FAD, but DOH has authorized use of the Waste Channel as part of DEP’s strategy to reduce suspended sediment (mud) in the New York City water supply. Directly contradicting this assertion is DOH’s approval of this practice, as part the suspended sediment reduction measures required by the 2007 FAD, which is memorialized in DOH’s November 26, 2010 letter to DEP. Such releases simply shift the cost of clean water from New York City to upstate communities who until now have never had a voice in the FAD process.

The current FAD revision process will be the first opportunity for these impacted communities to formally express their concerns to government decision-makers. In an August 7, 2013 letter to DOH, those communities asked for a hearing during the FAD revision public comment period to allow their voices to be heard. DOH responded by phoning one of the signators to deny that request.

We are one serious storm away from repeating the months of high-volume, muddy discharges that plagued the Lower Esopus and its communities from November of 2010 through February of 2011. We call on DOH and DEC and EPA to guarantee the openness and fairness of the FAD process by holding one or more public hearings in the communities both inside and outside the watershed that have been and will continue to be impacted by FAD decision-making and DEP’s reservoir operations.”