State, City Announce Landmark Agreement to Safeguard NYC Drinking WaterAgreement 2/16/11

Excerpted from www.riverkeeper.org/

"As of 2/16/11 NYS Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC) and NYC Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) declared a contemporary fifteen year Water Supply permit for NYC maintaining a conscientiously considerate Land Acquisition Program in NYC Watershed acquiring safe and salubrious drinking H20 for nine million NYC residents and one million people in Ulster, Orange, Putnam and Westchester counties. 

This concurrence allocated a hundred million dollars for a myriad of operations to control water pollution. The concurrence was realized on taxation assessment and hamlet development to enhance economic salubriousness for neighboring communities.

This last year, the NYC DEP and the Watershed Agricultural Council safeguarded 12,000 acres of land. It was the best year of protection of water, by the Land Acquisition Program since its outset in 1997. Since 1997 NYC has safeguard 116,000 acres of watershed lands, providing over a billion gallons of drinking H20 to NYC and northern NYS residents daily.

Before the land acquisition program began NYC owned 44,600 acres, in adjoining reservoirs. This new permit will afford NYC funds to purchase the rudimentary environmentally battleground land-masses, significant to future safeguarding of the watershed, from vendors at fair market value. Now NYS owns and protects 200,000 acres of watershed lands.