The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation has announced an agreement with the New York City Department of Environmental Protection to reduce the impact of discharges into an Ulster County creek. The much anticipated consent order comes amid high tension over watershed issues.
DEC’s Commissioner Wednesday announced the agreement with the DEP to reduce the impact of discharges from the Ashokan Reservoir into the Lower Esopus Creek. Under the agreement, DEP will perform a comprehensive environmental review of its releases from the Ashokan Reservoir. The agreement also directs DEP to fund about $3.4 million in environmental projects in the Esopus Creek Watershed. The draft consent order is subject to the approval of the New York City Comptroller. Republican Congressman Chris Gibson was one of several voices recently calling for DEC’s consent order to be released before the public comment period ends October 15th on a related matter - the state Department of Health’s draft revisions to New York City’s 2007 Filtration Avoidance Determination, which would allow DEP to avoid building a filtration system for the Catskill/Delaware watershed.
