of Land for Watershed Protection

City Has Purchased Land or Easements on More than 105,000 Acres of Upstate Land

Environmental Protection Commissioner Cas Holloway today announced the purchase of 685 acres of upstate land for $3.1 million.

read more ………

http://www.nyc.gov/html/dep/html/press_releases/10-20pr.shtml

As in the current national heath care reform mess, both the 2003 Croton Filtration and the 2005 Yankee Stadium Redevelopment meetings mangled an overlying issue with the project purpose — the taking of parkland (read: free land), when other alternatives existed to build said project. This mantra was encouraged by the so-called union-contractors and supported by union leadership and membership for selfish reasons – so contractors could make money; and union members higher pay and better benefits.

Just like some are confused about health care reform, few decision makers realized in 2004 and 2006 that alternative sites for each project would maintain union workers keeping their jobs and benefits, and would save the taxpayer billions of dollars.

Today, the message of health care reform is being purposely confused with “death trap for old people,” “increased in abortions,” or “socialistic medicine” for someone’s selfish agenda – like those $24 million per year health care insurance company CEOs, lobbyists tied to the health care industry, etc. Clearly, reform mean equal and better health care for all.

While those joint ventures of contractors and union leaders were initially successful, they ended with many corruption investigations, convictions and pleas, as well as with those same union workers left out in the picket line at the site of the Lehman College Science Building – across the street from the Jerome Park Reservoir!

Mayor Bloomberg & Friends are republicans; that explains the similarities to the national health care reform battle. Hopefully health care reform comes quicker than the long awaited park mitigation around the Jerome Park Reservoir and replacement parks around Yankee Stadium!

We need to learn from our mistakes; not make them over and over. The republican lobbyist spinners have selfish agendas. This is not a public relations campaign, this is our lives.  Health Insurance Reform is not complicated. The cost of inaction is immeasurable. President Obama’s program is clear:  he is not going to raise taxes, but cut the costs we all know exist.

I support the President’s Health Insurance Guarantees.

1. No Discrimination for Pre-Existing Conditions

2. No Exorbitant Out-of-Pocket Expenses, Deductibles or Co-Pays

3. No Cost -Sharing for Preventive Care

4. No Dropping of Coverage for Seriously Ill

5. No Gender Discrimination

6. No Annual or Lifetime Caps on Coverage

7. Extended Coverage for Young Adults

8. Guaranteed Insurance Renewal

Join me. Take Action. Start the discussion.

All EISs are supposed to be online and available for the public to see. See the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYS DEC) web page.

Here is the New York City Department of Environmental Protection

• Minor Modification dated April 2009

• Minor Modification Notice Dated May 1, 2009

Critique to follow

America’s great waterways are in peril, facing a new wave of pollution
that is killing fish, causing mutations in frogs, and threatening human
health. Our waters were supposed to be cleaned up by 1983, but they’re
still polluted by industrial-scale animal waste; legacy pollutants like
PCBs; and a toxic brew of new compounds from our modern life-style. Join
Correspondent Hedrick Smith from Chesapeake Bay to Puget Sound and find
out who’s responsible for the new pollution and what you can do about
it.

See video clips, trailer, press release and webcast materials at
http://www.pbs. org/wgbh/ pages/frontline/ poisonedwaters/

This press release focuses on many issues — another water board increase in the double digits, using the excess funds for the general fund and not water uses or a double tax to homeowners, and the conflict over the State giving permits to drill for gas near the watershed potentially endangering the lives of the nine million people who drink that water.

PR09-03-074
March 29, 2009
Contact: Press Office
(212) 669-3747
THOMPSON: CITY FAILING TO ADDRESS EXPECTED WATER RATE HIKES

-Thompson Calls Water Board Failure to Complete Comprehensive Rate Study “Unacceptable”-

View letter to the Governor

As New Yorkers confront another looming water rate increase, New York City Comptroller William C. Thompson, Jr. today proposed changes to the New York City water system to spare water ratepayers steeper future costs while ensuring the safety of the region’s water and sewage systems.

“It’s been a year since the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) commissioner stood before the New York City Water Board and vowed to conduct a million-dollar study to devise a better way to calculate water and sewer charges,” Thompson said.

“Even though that commissioner has since left and despite promises to the Board, to my office, to the City Council, and – most importantly – to the public, that review has not been completed in time to inform this year’s rate-setting process – and yet the Water Board is about to announce yet another hefty hike. One could only imagine that if it were done in time, and released early enough, we could have devised a way to cut down on these costs. This is unacceptable, and outrageous. Where has that million dollars gone?”

This Friday morning – April 3rd – the Water Board will meet to consider raising rates for local water consumers. Last year, the board approved a 14.5 percent increase and predicted that this next one would be another astounding double digit increase as well.

Standing with New York City Council Member David Weprin – who has advocated changes to spare New Yorkers sizeable water and sewer rate increases – Comptroller Thompson championed solutions that the Board should strongly consider to help New Yorkers who are already faced with rising subway and bus fares, utility bills, and grocery prices.

“New Yorkers are facing tough times,” Weprin said. “They are losing their jobs and their homes; they are paying more for less across the board – enough is enough. It is time for the DEP to be accountable to the residents of New York City. We must make changes to our water system, at the same time ensuring the safety of our drinking water, but not on the backs of struggling working families. I will oppose any attempt to increase water rates, especially a year after a double-digit increase and water lien sales authority, in order to protect our City’s working families who are struggling.”

The Water Board leases the water and sewer infrastructure from the City. The Board’s rental payments to the City are based on a formula that, until recently, simply reimbursed the City for water-related debt service on bonds issued before the Water Authority was created. Since 2005, however, the formula has led to rental payments in excess of the underlying city expense.

Thompson charged that this formula is forcing water ratepayers to subsidize the City’s General Fund, because “excess rent” flows into that fund and is used as general revenue. In Fiscal Year 2009, such “excess rent” will total nearly $123 million, and this is predicted to swell to more than $207 million by Fiscal Year 2012.

Over the last two years, Thompson proposed rebating the excess rent back to the Water Board to offset the cost of running the water system. In Thompson’s plan, the excess rent would have been split equally for two purposes: ½ for pay-as-you-go capital spending, which reduces costs over the long term, and ½ for other water system expenses, which would lessen the need for rate increases.

Additionally, Thompson identified another source of revenue for our water system that might prevent water rate increases: federal stimulus money. Under the terms of the stimulus bill, the New York State Revolving Fund will receive approximately $432 million for clean water projects and $82 million for drinking water projects. However, only half of that money currently is slated to be distributed in the form of direct grants or similar deep subsidies.

In a letter just sent to Governor David Paterson – which you can read at www.comptroller.nyc.gov –, Thompson asked that the State support direct grant allocation of all of this stimulus money in the face of overwhelming needs of the water systems operating throughout the State, and the New York City Municipal Water Finance Authority in particular.

“A direct grant program to the Authority would have an immediate and lasting impact on New York City’s rate base,” Thompson said. “For every $100 million that is granted rather than loaned, debt service costs of more than $5 million per year will be put back in ratepayers’ pockets. This program also will fund capital repairs that translate into new work and new jobs, not only in the City, but throughout the watershed region.”

Thompson further stressed that another means of bringing savings to ratepayers would be to require that the DEP reduce its operating budget by five percent. Because it relies on water and sewer rates instead of tax revenue, the DEP has been exempted from making the same belt-tightening reductions that have been required at other city agencies.

Thompson further proposed that the State must more strongly regulate and enforce proposed gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale formation, a portion of which sits below the City drinking water supply west of the Hudson River.

“Drilling in or near the watershed potentially threatens to contaminate New York City drinking water and necessitate the construction of a water filtration plant whose cost could well exceed $10 billion for construction alone, further increasing water rates,” Thompson said.

The proposed method of gas extra extraction, known as hydraulic fracturing, involves large quantities of highly toxic chemicals and waste water. The State’s Environmental Impact review process must ensure that no permits are issued where there could be contamination of our drinking water, and that any issued for drilling be coupled with sufficient regulatory controls to protect against the risks of these chemicals and waste water produced as a result of the drilling.

Last December, Thompson submitted recommendations to the State as part of its environmental impact scoping process.

“I will continue to closely monitor and participate in the review process to protect our watershed and ratepayers,” Thompson said. “In protecting our drinking water, we protect our ratepayers precisely at a time when they are feeling the squeeze of the current downturn. Our water system cannot continue with business-as-usual in the face of tremendous economic and environmental threats.”

###

. …………The American Society of Civil Engineers, in a report released last week, essentially described the state of American infrastructure as dreadful. More than a quarter of the nation’s bridges were rated structurally deficient or functionally obsolete. Public transportation systems and the nation’s dams and levees are generally in sorry shape, many of them more than a half-century old.

Listen to what the report had to say about the water we drink:

“America’s drinking water systems face an annual shortfall of at least $11 billion to replace aging facilities that are near the end of their useful life and to comply with existing and future federal water regulations. This does not account for growth in the demand for drinking water over the next 20 years. Leaking pipes lose an estimated seven billion gallons of clean drinking water a day.”

The society gave the nation’s infrastructure an overall grade of D and said it would require an investment of $2.2 trillion over five years to get it back into decent shape ………………..

And, there is an interesting video I found mentioned in the comments section:  http://www.liquidassets.psu.edu/

WATER-GORED: MIKE BOOTS CRITIC OF RATES

By DAVID SEIFMAN City Hall Bureau Chief

September 13, 2008 –

A respected environmentalist who publicly criticized City Hall’s soaking of water ratepayers was forced out by Mayor Bloomberg yesterday as chairman of the Water Board.

Jim Tripp, general counsel of the Environmental Defense Fund and a 16-year member of the Water Board, unexpectedly announced his resignation at a routine meeting of the panel in lower Manhattan.

In a brief interview later, Tripp said he felt it was time to step down because “there’s kind of a threshold the board had reached and I had reached as chair.”

But sources said Tripp decided to depart after learning Bloomberg intended to replace him as chairman with another board member, Alan Moss, a former Parks Department official.

Tripp, a former federal prosecutor and a prominent environmental advocate, held the chairman’s post for the past four years.

“They wanted someone more pliable as chairman,” said one insider, referring to the mayor’s office.

“Jim is too independent, he’s a person of principle. This sends a very clear signal: ‘We don’t want the Water Board to do anything but say yes.’ ”

Councilman James Gennaro (D-Queens), chairman of the Environmental Protection Committee, said Tripp was toppled because he “stood up for what was right.”

“The mayor wants to continue to divert over $100 million a year in water and sewer revenues and has shown by his action today that he will vanquish anyone who stands in his way,” said Gennaro.

Tripp wasn’t one to pull his punches, even if that meant taking on City Hall on behalf of ratepayers.

Last May, he announced that he had contemplated quitting to protest the continuing “rental payments” the city imposed on water users under an outmoded deal struck two decades ago.

Tripp’s comments came as the board reluctantly approved a 14.5 percent rate hike, the highest in 16 years.

A study is now under way of the water system’s entire rate structure.

Moss told The Post he agreed with Tripp that “we don’t want the city budget to be balanced on [water] rates.”

But he parted ways on tactics.

Moss, whose government service dates back five decades to the Wagner era, was the only board member who wouldn’t sign a letter to City Hall questioning the rental agreement.

“You don’t do that until you’ve exhausted everything else,” Moss said.

“My experience and take on the matter is you fight this out first with various agencies of the city internally.”

Mayoral aides declined to say if Tripp was pushed out, saying only that “he resigned today for the reasons he gave at the meeting, and the mayor appreciates his exemplary service.”

david.seifman@nypost.com

http://www.nypost.com/seven/09132008/news/regionalnews/water_gored__mike_boots_critic_of_rates_128877.htm

Subj: Croton Water Treatment Plant: NB permits / After hour permits Date: 07/09/2008 11:40:30 AM Eastern Daylight Time From: Marshall A. Kaminer To karenargenti cc

Dear Ms. Argenti,

The following is in response to your attached e-mail, dated 7/2/08, regarding the above referenced DEP project:

Based on several discussions between DEP and DOB, the Croton Water Treatment Plant was determined to be a “structure appurtenant to a tunnel” based on its direct functional relationship with the tunnel. It is therefore not subject to Department of Buildings jurisdiction per NYC Charter § 643(7). We determined that there is a functional relationship between the treatment plant and tunnel in that they are necessarily physically connected in order for the treatment plant to perform its function.

As a result of this section of the City Charter, the new building application was determined to have been submitted in error, and was subsequently withdrawn.

It was further determined that, per Charter §643(7), the Department retains jurisdiction over other aspects of the work including power-operated cranes and derricks, electrical work, and all work associated with elevators. In addition, the Department will retain jurisdiction over any structure or work not permanently connected to the appurtenant structure, such as temporary trailers, stair towers and scaffolds, as well as excavation work. Meetings are ongoing with DEP to ensure that these types of applications are submitted, approved and permitted.

Marshall A. Kaminer, PE