Keeping the little guys
in their places

When times get tough, the tough start trying to dump on the Upper Delaware. We couldn’t help but notice two recent proposals for problem solving which reportedly are brewing in the minds of leaders in Orange County and New York City, places where in the past our region seldom came to mind.

Around the river and through the woods

According to a recent New York Times piece, drought-stricken New York City is looking to relieve the mandate on its Delaware River reservoirs to provide downstream flows by purchasing privately held reservoirs further downstream. That water, which observers believe would come from the Mirant Corportation’s Mongaup River system, would satisfy the Supreme Court-ordered flow requirements at Montague and Trenton and keep the salt water away from New Jersey wells. However, despite repeated calls to introduce one, there is no required upstream flow for Callicoon and Narrowsburg, and in reducing or eliminating current upstream releases, the city would seriously threaten the environment and the economy of the federally protected Upper Delaware between Hancock and Mongaup.

We don’t know how much a New York City purchase of the these reservoirs would cost, but we tend to agree with Upper Delaware Council Hancock delegate George Frosch, who last week noted that if the city repaired known and extensive leaks in its aging aqueducts, the water saved might equal the storage in the largest of the city reservoirs, at Cannonsville. “Why should we be forced to pay for their negligence?” Frosch asked. He’s right.

In a serious drought, people’s drinking water needs certainly must take precedence over the river’s environment, but the environment should not arbitrarily be made to suffer for the poor management of the water provider. New York City has other alternatives, should it choose to employ them. The fish, wildlife and large portions of the local economy in the valley do not have that luxury.

Holy traffic jam, Batman

Our out-of-county daily on March 12 showed its Orange County colors in an editorial regurgitation of Route 17 traffic study figures. Those figures, from a Task Force on Economic Growth, reportedly predict that one new Sullivan County casino would bring 100,000 new vehicles onto the Quickway daily, and two would generate an estimated 140,000. The highway’s capacity is said to be 65,000 and the editorial bemoans the likelihood that the state would require years to build new rail service or upgrade the highway to handle the new traffic. So, what’s the recommendation? Orange County, they suggest, will have to take Sullivan County to court to slow down casino development… or, they don’t add, but essentially mean, nobody is going to be able to get to the malls in Middletown and Woodbury that help fire Orange County’s economy.

We must have missed their earlier editorials that bemoaned the difficulties that commuters and weekend travelers to Sullivan County encountered because of Orange County’s rampant commercial development along the highway in past decades.

Once again, as they did in recent articles warning of the threat of impending urban sprawl in Sullivan, our friends in Orange County are attempting to protect us from the difficulties involved with our economic growth. Their warnings come well after the fact of Orange County’s earlier growth spurt, and once again we must have missed their timely editorial concerns about developing sprawl along Route 211. But, we are in Sullivan County, and the mail takes longer here.

David Hulse, News Editor