Watershed Management for Potable Water Supply Assessing the New York City Strategy (2000) / Chapter Skim
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1 The Problem
1 The Problem
Pages 23-44
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From page 23... ...
and state health agencies if a water supplier demonstrates it will "maintain a watershed control program, which minimizes the potential for contamination by Giardia cysts and viruses in the source ~ The Croton System of the New York City water supply is under order from the EPA to be filtered. 2 Safe Drinking Water Act, P.L.
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From page 24... ...
This report evaluates the scientific underpinnings of New York City's watershed management strategy and presents conclusions and recommendations that will contribute to its successful implementation. Because of the increasingly important role of watershed management in providing safe drinking water, many of the report's conclusions and recommendations extend beyond New York City and apply generally to surface water supplies elsewhere.
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From page 25... ...
These conditions include creating a watershed management program, meeting standards for turbidity and fecal and total coliforms, providing adequate disinfection, and avoiding any waterborne disease outbreak. Eager to take advantage of this provision, in 1991 New York City began to develop a watershed management program that would maintain the high quality of its drinking water supply.
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From page 26... ...
The main goals of the CWT were to ensure the proposed regulations would not prevent reasonable community development and to limit the regulations to the minimum needed to protect water quality (Stave, 1998~. The CWT pursued legal action as one means of meeting its objectives and took a lead role in opposing the proposed regulations (Finnegan, 1997~.
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Memorandum of Agreement The MOA is a landmark agreement in watershed management that recognizes both the importance of preserving high-quality drinking water and the economic health and vitality of communities located within the watersheds. The MOA explicitly states that these goals are compatible and can be met through cooperation and partnership between New York City and the upstate watershed communities.
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From page 28... ...
Having observed the transition from agriculture to residential development in the Croton watershed and subsequent declines in water quality, NYC DEP labeled agriculture a preferred land use in the Catskill/ Delaware watershed (DelVecchio, 1997~. Because agriculture is also a possible source of pollutants, NYC DEP and EPA made arrangements with the farming community to establish a Watershed Agricultural Program in lieu of including agriculture as a regulated activity under the MOA.
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30 WATERSHED MANAGEMENT FOR NEW YORK CITY KEY ISSUES IN NEW YORK CITY AND OTHER WATER SUPPLIES The central focus of this study is an evaluation of New York City's strategy for maintaining its high-quality drinking water through active management of its water supply watersheds. As described below, the scope of the study is broad, the issues can be addressed at several levels, and the answers involve both science and value judgments.
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From page 31... ...
In light of current scientific understanding of the relationships between water quality and human and ecological health, a central question for unfiltered supplies is whether a strategy based on watershed management without filtration can achieve a water supply with an acceptable level of risk to public health and the environment. For this reason, it is often an overarching (though sometimes unstated)
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From page 32... ...
In the future, water supplies will be expected to protect against microbial pathogens, toxic organic and inorganic compounds, and disinfection byproducts in the face of increasingly strict standards for each. This challenge is especially acute for water supplies that rely on chlorine disinfection as their sole treatment process.
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From page 33... ...
During its twoyear tenure, the committee identified other aspects of the watershed management strategy that also warranted consideration, and it has included these in the report for consistency and completeness. The committee's work plan addressed issues in the following areas: Evolving Safe Drinking Water Act Enhanced monitoring program and Geographic Information System (GIS)
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In addition, the current health of the watershed and the water supply are considered by evaluating water quality and compliance monitoring data. This chapter represents a transition between the report's introductory material and its evaluation of various scientific aspects of the MOA.
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From page 39... ...
Its relationship to other programs within the MOA is explored. Public Health Protection and Microbial Risk Assessment Because the end result of watershed management and water supply protection should be the protection of public health among consumers of the drinking water supply, this issue was considered by the committee from multiple viewpoints.
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From page 40... ...
Antidegradation Federal regulations require states to create and implement an antidegradation policy that will prevent further deterioration of water quality in all waterbodies. Although not encompassed by the MOA, antidegradation could be used to enhance the protection currently afforded to the New York City water supply reservoirs.
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From page 41... ...
Buffer Zones and Setback Distances One of the committee's most challenging tasks was to assess the capability of setback distances for improving water quality in the water supply reservoirs. Setback distances ranging from 25 feet to 1,000 feet are evaluated in Chapter 10 for their ability to remove such pollutants as phosphorus, sediment, pesticides, and landfill leachate.
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From page 42... ...
These considerations define special management challenges that may be materially affected by the strategy chosen to protect the drinking water supply. Transferability of Report Contents Although no other community and its water supply is quite like New York City, information within this report applies to other communities that use surface water sources for drinking water supplies.
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From page 43... ...
1993a. Draft Generic Environmental Impact Statement for the Draft Watershed Regulations for the Protection From Contamination, Degradation, and Pollution of the New York City Water Supply and Its Sources.
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1997. Watershed protection strategies: A case study of the New York City Watershed in light of the 1996 Amendments to the Safe Drinking Water Act.
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