Water resources: Wistful thinking won't replace a plan
Our Town Wed., January 5, 2011
Nature has a way of filling vacuums. Human nature has a way of filling public policy vacuums. In the absence of official directive or oversight, policy decisions are made by default or not made at all.
And so it is with water in Rockland County. The Rockland County Sewer Commission oversees wastewater. The Rockland County Drainage Agency weighs in on wetlands, streams and runoff. What official agency, determines the policy that ensures an adequate supply of drinking water and the use and conservation of water resources in Rockland?
You guessed it, no one, thus a classic policy vacuum that is filled by the organization most likely to benefit itself, our multinational water utility, United Water Resources.
United Water Resources has a questionable record of performance and forthright disclosure of information in Rockland. Not the least of these involves the amount of water discharged from Lake DeForest to New Jersey, flooding in West Nyack. and the latest incident, this week's rejection of the company's draft environmental statement about the controversial new desalinization pilot plant in Haverstraw. The 29-page document from the DEC demands that United Water provide omitted information and present it in a way that ordinary citizens can read and understand the data, a point we have been stressing for years.
For years no one worried about water resources because the utility balanced the equation of supply and demand-residents and business demanded water, which the water company was happy to supply at rates set by the New York Public Service Commission.
Homeowners and commercial property owners beyond the reach of public water supply mains must still rely on private wells. Those residents who drew or still draw water from private wells ignored the water utility, just as people who have gone off the electrical grid through use of self-sufficient alternative energy supplies don't care what O&R charges. The only time anyone thinks about utilities is when the lights go out or the well runs dry. The latter is far more likely to occur than the former.
However, steady growth in Clarkstown, Orangetown and the rest of Rockland over the past four or five decades have changed the water supply equation from simple supply and demand to one of shrinking supply in the face of increasing demand.
Very simply, extensive building of homes, commercial structures and parking lots has
increased the amount of rainwater runoff which in turn prevents the aquifer from recharging with water for public and private use.
Instead of being naturally replenished by rainwater filtering through the ground, the aquifers remain deprived and parched. Drought conditions over a number of hot, dry summers have forced such stop-gap measures as alternate day lawn-watering restrictions and the ludicrous summer-winter rate schedule that has inspired far more derision than real conservation.
While residents complain about shortages and rate increases and seek an easy target by blaming United Water, the real cause of Rockland's water shortage is lack of a county water resource policy and the means to apply and administer it.
Absent such a policy, each town and village is free to approve building of any size and type within its borders, with any density of occupancy allowed by zoning, without any consideration of the ability of the water utility to supply the needs of those people who use, work or live in those buildings. The impact of required parking areas that deny water to the aquifer is also seldom considered.
Since United Water pays its shareholders by supplying water rather than denying it, the lack of a sustainable water policy creates a conflict between good planning and profit, and between short-term private gain and long-term public benefit.
This newspaper has stressed the importance of a long-term water policy for years, just as we stressed the need to manage solid waste on a county-wide basis, rather than force each town and village to handle its own garbage in an inefficient and cost-intensive way.
We are no longer floating alone in the campaign for a comprehensive water policy for Rockland. A raft of advocacy groups and conservationists has found common cause in this issue. Instead of individual voices, they stand united, and expressed their views most recently at public hearings on the county's new comprehensive plan.
We, along with the water policy advocates, had hoped, and urged that the new county comprehensive plan remedy the lack of a water resources policy by addressing the key components of water resources stewardship that would include:
• Capture and reuse of rainwater and grey water for irrigation and other appropriate purposes;
• Protection of the aquifer against pollution and overdevelopment;
• Incorporating "green" mandates for water use and re-use in building and zoning
codes;
• Regulations to protect the quality of groundwater and surface water supply;
• Re-introduction of treated wastewater into reservoirs instead of dumping it into the Hudson River; and,
• Establishing measurable targets for achieving water conservation.
All these policy elements, however, demand vigorous county leadership and a means of enforcement. The new comprehensive plan, while acknowledging that Rockland has a limited capacity for growth that can outstrip available resources, contains no specific recommendation for limiting that growth or dealing with the problems of growth that now exist. Good intentions do not set policy, and therefore do not solve problems.
We do not believe that hand-wringing (if indeed there will be sufficient water for hand-washing), or blaming United Water Resources is an effective solution. Instead we offer some specific policies that might achieve desired water resources management goals.
The County Legislature should adopt a comprehensive sustainable water resources policy and incorporate it into the Comprehensive Plan. The plan should articulate sustainable goals. Only when such a definite plan is in place, can the proper agency be created to carry it out.
We envision a water district or water resources agency structured along the lines of the Rockland County Solid Waste Authority , the Drainage Agency or the Sewer Commission. Each of these has a definite function in Rockland.
A board made up of private citizens, conservationists and some public officials, would govern the district. The water district would deal with and monitor United Water to ensure that county policy is being carried out. The water district would represent the county in relations with the DEC and the Public Service Commission, all of which exert regulatory power over the water utility.
The water district should be empowered to issue water use permits for new construction projects that could adversely impact the water supply. "Green" building practices for water conservation, use and re-use should be made part of that approval process.
The water district could and should enlist the participation of the Rockland County Board of Health, the Sewer Commission and the Rockland County Drainage Agency, all of which presently exert some authority over water. None of these possible solutions are even mentioned in the new Comprehensive Plan, which has failed to do much about water but issue vague wishes.
Planning in a vacuum, without an agent of change to create action is no better than a vacuum caused by lack of planning. □