May 16, 2008
NYC Tap Water Gets Report Card from Riverkeeper
Good news for metro mammals; the New York City tap water is still safe to drink, according to a report card released yesterday by Riverkeeper and the Clean Drinking Water Coalition. The longstanding environmental advocacy group gives our water system A grades for reducing fecal coliform from waterfowl, managing stormwater runoff and waterborne disease risk assessment. High-five!
But the city needs to do a better job of securing land around the Croton watershed in Westchester, where development has increased non-point pollution. To compensate, the city is building a $2.8 billion filtration plant in the Bronx to filter water from the Croton system, which supplies about 10% of our total. And the city scored a gentleman’s C+ when it comes to reducing non-point pollution in the Catskill/Delaware Watershed areas east of the Hudson.
The favorable grades are non-governmental but still good news for the city, because if evidence shows that the water supply is falling behind, the EPA will force New York to install a filtration plant that will cost billions to build and hundreds of millions a year to maintain. So pour yourself a celebratory glass of aqua, blast some Fela Kuti, and pore over the entire 75 page pdf on the Riverkeeper website.
Photo courtesy edEx.
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where does the other 90% come from?
The Catskill/Delaware Watershed. And great photo, thanks!
Check out the system map here:
http://www.nyc.gov/html/dep/html/drinking_water/wsmaps_wide.shtml
You may want to note that because water quality is better in the Catskill/Delaware systems the Croton system is only used when absolutely necessary to meet high demand or because of drought in the other watersheds. It also only goes to certain low-elevation areas of Manhattan and the Bronx. Typically it would only be used from May to September when water use is highest but I'm pretty sure it hasn't been used in a few years now while the filtration plant construction takes place.
I should say it hasn't been used in NYC for a few years -- there are towns in Westchester and maybe Putnam too that get all their water from the Croton system.
Like many political action groups, Riverkeeper is manned by individuals that try to appear selfless but whose entire sense-of-self/power/career is based on constantly reminding people that more needs to be done and improvements are never enough.
There may be truth to those sayings but the way they've been known to create crises and never acknowledge progress (like many civil rights "leaders") makes them unreliable in my view.
"fecal coliform from waterfowl"
aka: birdshit.
There may be truth to those sayings but the way they've been known to create crises and never acknowledge progress (like many civil rights "leaders") makes them unreliable in my view.
Everything doesn't have to be a crisis, agreed. But water privatization is alive and well in the US. Poland Spring is owned by the Nestle corp, for Hershey's sake.
http://www.nestle-watersna.com
17% comes from Uranus!