"Unprotected private land will be developed. We can't let that happen," said Councilman James Gennaro (D-Queens). Amazing, eh?
Well, he's not talking about here.
APPLE WATER THREAT
The plan is meant to prevent developers from building near the Gotham-feeding reservoirs in the first place so there will be no need to construct an $8 billion filtration plant to treat pollutants, said Speaker Christine Quinn.
CITY'S $200M LAND PLAN
Department of Environmental Protection officials said water bills would rise 50 percent if the federal government orders the city to build an $8 billion filtration plant for Catskill-Delaware.
Christine and company: you guys have been in office 6 years now. Maybe you should have been looking at this back in 2002 rather than passing non-binding resolutions, taking junkets overseas and banning baseball bats. Oh wait, that's just what you've done this year. No one remembers what you did back in 2002...
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5 comments:
The upstate people have every right to throw back the mantra of development into the face of NYC ... and they will.
Remember a few years ago when we had water restrictions? Wonder what will happen with another million people. Lets ask Doctor Don.
The City HAS been buying up land upstate since 1997 -- over 85,000 acres so far. Don't believe everything you read or everything a politician says.
Oh, by the way, the City just today committed another $241 million for buying land upstate.
Yeah we know. It says in the article: "The city Department of Environmental Protection has acquired or obtained conservation easements to bar development in 77,000 acres of the Catskill-Delaware watershed, but 700,000 acres remain in private hands."
That's only 11% ownership - quite pathetic.
That's a supremely uninformed comment. What's pathetic is when cynical people who don't have the facts throw anonymous bombs on the internet instead of educating themselves.
The city's watershed is over 1 million acres in size -- not 700,000 -- and a good share of that (around 30 percent) is owned by the state. That land is therefore protected even though it is not owned by the city or by private interests.
As for the rest, what do you propose to do with the people who own land and actually live and work in the watershed? Throw them all out? Evict them by eminent domain? The City did that to thousands of people in order to build the water system but doesn't have the power to do that today. (Even if it did, can you imagine the politics and real life effects of evicting 50,000 residents from their homes?)
The city currently is allowed by the state to buy only undeveloped watershed land and only from people who are willing to sell. It can solicit every landowner in the watershed, but if people choose not sell there's nothing that can be done about it. You can't compare NYC's situation to other cities that get their water from totally unpopulated areas.
By the way, the Post story and the editorial that followed a day later are chock full of errors. For starters, the editorial refers to three development projects that it says could trigger filtration of the water supply -- only problem is that two of the three aren't even in the catskill watershed! They're in the croton watershed, which is already being filtered. Even the quote you cite is wrong. The city has outright purchased that much land, not just conservation easements on it.
PLEASE don't believe everything you read, especially in the Post. Or you may become just another one of those cynical anonymous people on the internet.
Actually, upon further review I see that my reading comprehension was less than perfect. The quote you provided is accurate (if a bit confusing). My mistake. But it doesn't change anything else I said, and it doesn't change the fact that the Post story and editorial are wildly incorrect.
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