Implores Regulators to Listen to Local Stakeholders
KINDERHOOK, NY … July 21, 2016 — John Faso implored environmental and health officials in New York to listen to local stakeholders and address arbitrary and burdensome watershed regulations that are hurting property owners and small businesses while maintaining proven and cost-effective programs that protect the Catskill watershed and its water supply.
Watch his remarks here.
Faso, a Kinderhook resident who is running for the 19th Congressional District on the Republican, Conservative, Independence and Reform lines, cited several successful programs — often community-led efforts that are incentive-based and funded by the Department of Environmental Protection — and pointed to overly onerous rules that do little to improve water quality yet alienate communities and stifle economic development opportunities throughout the district.
“My time spent in these communities listening to local stakeholders suggests that a little flexibility could go a long way and contribute to overall water quality and pollution control while scaling back some arbitrary and economically damaging regulations in (west of Hudson) towns, villages and hamlets,” Faso said in his remarks. (A full transcript is below).
Faso made his remarks at a public hearing pertaining to a waiver granted by the federal Environmental Protection Agency that allows New York City to avoid filtering surface water from its watershed in areas west of the Hudson (WOH). New York’s City’s waiver, or FAD, was issued in 1997 and is renewed every 10 years.
The western watershed provides 90 percent of the city’s water and serves millions of people. The remaining water comes from areas where no such waiver was granted and where water is filtered through a treatment facility.
The city first obtained its waiver by persuading federal regulators that water quality could be maintained through rules that limit land use in the region and provide some funding in exchange to offset local costs.
Such funding has gone toward upgrades to local wastewater treatment plants, new facilities, replacement of residential septic tanks and land acquisition.
“If we do nothing to address the legitimate concerns of our Upstate watershed towns, represented by such groups as the Coalition of Watershed Towns (CWT), recognized as an official party to the MOA (Memorandum of Agreement), then we risk losing access to a high-quality freshwater supply while further alienating Upstate communities in Delaware, Ulster, Greene, Schoharie, and Sullivan counties,” Faso said.
As a member of the New York Assembly, Faso developed and pushed proposals that led to real balanced budgets – including the first reduction in state spending in decades while closing a $5 billion deficit. He championed legislation that made a difference for tens of thousands of families such as the STAR program and education and real property tax reform. A former board member of the Rockefeller Institute of Government, Faso also served for three years as a member of the Control Board that worked to fix the financial and managerial issues of the City of Buffalo and its school system.
Mr. Faso and his wife, Mary Frances, a registered nurse, are the proud parents of two children. They have lived in Kinderhook, New York, for more than three decades.
Remarks Below:
The New York City watershed is correctly considered the gold standard of urban water supply. Stretching across eight counties, the watershed collects and directs approximately a billion gallons of fresh drinking water into the metropolitan area each day. The story of how the city accomplishes this is as much about good neighbors as it is good engineering.
The Department of Environmental Protection’s (DEP) long-term watershed protection plan, authorized in the Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) and implemented according to the 1997 Watershed Rules and Regulations (WRR), is at risk of breaking down. If we do nothing to address the legitimate concerns of our Upstate watershed towns, represented by such groups as the Coalition of Watershed Towns (CWT), recognized as an official party to the MOA, then we risk losing access to a high-quality freshwater supply while further alienating Upstate communities in Delaware, Ulster, Greene, Schoharie, and Sullivan counties.
With the issuance of a new Filtration Avoidance Determination (FAD) approaching next year, now is the time to revisit many of the issues left unaddressed by the revised FAD in 2007. Specifically, I would like to address the unique circumstances of those watershed communities west of the Hudson (WOH) and how the current regulatory regime enforced by DEP dramatically reduces necessary development and squeezes the economic vitality of our small towns and villages within the watershed.
Ever since eminent domain was used in the middle part of the last century to flood low-lying Upstate farmland and create the vast reservoirs draining into New York City, watershed communities west of the Hudson have accommodated the land-use rules imposed on them, provided they were administered fairly and with local control in mind. We have seen the fruits of this partnership in the Septic Rehabilitation Program administered by the MOA’s Catskill Watershed Corporation (CWC) and funded through DEP. This has been a cost-effective water-quality program that recognizes the flexibility needed for rural communities such as those found in Delaware County and elsewhere to comply with the sewage-upgrade requirements of the WRR. Consider if the expedience and cost-effectiveness of the Rehabilitation Program had not been in place: Delaware County property owners, where the median household income is approximately $44,183 a year, would have been required to upgrade to new septic systems at a cost of $35,000-$45,000, with no city or state funding to offset the incremental costs. The conditions would have been untenable.
Another success story is the slate of the programs administered by the Watershed Agricultural Council. These programs are locally led, voluntary, incentive-based and funded by the DEP. Low-density land use in the agricultural and forestry industries are preferred land uses for watershed protection and it is essential these programs remain adequately funded via the FAD as they are cost-effective and are working.
Water quality in WOH watershed communities has been stable or improving since the MOA was signed in 1997. It is not clear, however, that the DEP’s stormwater regulations have materially contributed to this progress or that these rules are administered in a manner sensitive to the character of rural communities as opposed to their urban and suburban counterparts. What has been clear, though, is the priority given to the DEP’s own rigid interpretation of the Storm Water Manual in implementing the stormwater pollution prevention plan (SWPPP). Unlike septic issues, the DEP has displayed little interest in local concerns, and continues to force individual permit requirements — rather than statewide generic permit — on Upstate properties. The result has been that stormwater management is considerably more expensive within these watershed communities than it might otherwise be with a more collaborative approach through the CWC or some other local entity.
The DEP is attempting to preserve water quality by stabilizing development in WOH communities where decades of depopulation and deindustrialization have made such development rare. According to the Delaware County Economic Development Department, 95 percent of the county’s businesses have five or fewer employees, with gross business incomes of perhaps $400,000 per year. The costs — both monetary and opportunity — are too high for these commercial property owners to pay the engineering and legal fees associated with new stormwater permits or septic systems for small businesses. The DEP is regulating a development boom which simply does not exist in the western half of this watershed.
Another central issue that concerns many people in the WOH watershed is the flood-mitigation programs that DEP and other governmental bodies are responsible for. The devastating flooding of August 2011 from Hurricane Irene is still very fresh in the minds of many residents, and though some good steps have been taken to help with future flood mitigation, there remains much more to be done. Many local leaders in the watershed would like to see more action taken to reduce the risk of future flooding, including reasonable year-round water levels in the DEP reservoirs.
On behalf of the communities represented in the WOH watershed, I strongly encourage the DEP to revisit its commitments in the MOA and subsequent revisions before a new FAD is issued. My time spent in these communities listening to local stakeholders suggests that a little flexibility could go a long way and contribute to overall water quality and pollution control while scaling back some arbitrary and economically damaging regulations in WOH towns, villages and hamlets.
John Faso (R-Kinderhook) is former Republican leader of the state Assembly and candidate for Congress in the 19th Congressional district. To learn more about Faso, visit johnfaso.com.
###