The city Department of Environmental Protection is requesting an 11.5 percent water rate increase. Rate increases do not guarantee good decisions are made to ensure the future viability of our water and wastewater systems. We hope that DEP will be discerning in their decisions in order for the public to have confidence that their dollars are wisely used and rate increases justified.

The Croton Watershed Clean Water Coalition firmly believes that the purchasing of land in sensitive areas around the watershed should be a priority. The many organizations working on clean water can agree that proper protection would solve most water quality issues. This is vital, not only to our physical well-being but the city and state economic stability.

The global warming issue is definitely a water issue because of the hydrologic cycle, i.e., evaporation from the oceans, cloud formation, rainfall on land, then runoff back to the oceans. As the climate changes we are guaranteed negative effects on water resources. Higher temperatures will affect snowfall: what does fall is going to melt earlier and faster, bringing floods. More droughts will occur since the lessening amounts run off sooner and disappear earlier. Climate change brings about extremes, therefore critical emergencies could occur because of frequency and intensity.
The main threat to clean water is unwise real estate development of the land which naturally filters with millions of organisms that consume products harmful to humans. In addition, the impervious surfaces created by structures produce heat which contribute to global warming and prevent infiltration, for water filtration by natural means.

Infrastructure has been the focus to deal with our water problems. This has brought high costs plus environmental damage as well as social and economic problems yet has not solved our water woes. In addition, we face aging systems and storm damage from climate change. Now the DEP must change their direction because of the search for a new contractor  (their contractor for the van cortlandt park water treatment plant has withdrawn) and they face increased costs with a new contractor; their method of water protection should be reconsidered. Among the choices that could be made is membrane technology.

A membrane filtration plant could be expected to be 1,000 times more effective in removing such pathogens as cryptosporidium, six to seven log reduction compared to three to four log reduction with dissolved air flotation or DAF. This result is confirmed by the Environmental Protection Agency. Pathogen removal is the single most important objective of a water system. In evaluating a membrane system, maintenance costs will be significantly lower since it uses a fraction of the chemicals compared to a DAF plant. The membrane plant's footprint would be approximately one-third the size of the proposed DAFplant and half the present estimated cost.

Of course, the best choice and most effective is preservation of sensitive lands by outright purchase. The federal EPA considers ownership of approximately 25 percent of buffer land to be sufficient to ensure clean and safe water. The purchase of 10,000 acres of Putnam County forested land around the reservoirs would be enough to reach this goal. The estimated cost would be
$150 million, far less than the massive chemical water treatment plant ($1.5 billion and rising). The difference could be put into a trust to pay the tax on the land for hundreds of years.

Clean, safe and affordable water is a basic human right. The effective choice should be clear: purchase buffer land for sustainable water protection, or build enormously expensive infrastructure that ages and contributes to global warming. The DEP coffee pot is steaming but air pollution is blocking the sense of smell.