Going with the flow

The Flexible Flow Management Plan (FFMP) for the Catskill reservoirs and Delaware River, issued earlier this year, drew sharp criticism from two groups: property owners who felt it provided insufficient flooding mitigation, and conservation groups who felt that it did not provide sufficient flow to protect river habitat. In response, the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) withdrew the plan, and will release a revision around the middle of July. According to Delaware Rivermaster Gary Paulachok, releases in the revised FFMP will be a lot closer to CP2—an alternative presented by a conservation coalition of Trout Unlimited, The Nature Conservancy and several local nonprofit organizations—than in the original version, and the rate and timing of releases have been altered to provide greater mitigation of flooding downstream from the reservoirs.

Many—in particular, Friends of the Upper Delaware—think the FFMP does not go far enough. However, there seems to be substantial agreement, with which we concur, that the FFMP, at least if revised to largely incorporate CP2’s requests, is better than the old regime.

The old system was based on “banks,” fixed quantities of water that could be released on the basis of triggers such as water temperature. If these banks were exhausted during the year, it left no recourse for managing river-habitat conditions. The FFMP involves a schedule of releases, based on season and the amount of water stored at any given time in the reservoirs. The releases are more stable, better approximate the pattern of natural river flows, can take advantage of periods when more abundant water is available, and do not depend on exhaustible banks.

The main hitch seems to be that the specific levels of water available for these releases depends on the goodness of New York City’s heart, which will decide each year how much it can make available out of the 800 million gallons per day (mgd) that the Supreme Court cast in stone in 1954 as its right to use on a daily basis. According to the FFMP, the amount made available for conservation releases will not be more than 35 mgd. It may be as low as zero (though even then some releases, albeit fairly low, will be allowed.) In fact, the FFMP discusses expanding the storage capacity of the Pepacton and/or Cannonsville reservoirs in order to cover the conservation-related releases, apparently assuming the city can’t, or shouldn’t, spare any water on an ongoing basis.

While we concede the political reality that the revised FFMP is probably the best plan that can be passed at the moment—unanimous consent among all five of the decree parties is required—we can’t help wondering whether the Supreme Court decree, a document over half a century old, ought to govern the Catskill/Delaware watershed forever.

We question in particular the 800 mgd figure, especially since the city appears to be nowhere close to running up against its limits. In fact—to its great credit—it has sharply curtailed its water consumption in past decades by almost one third, or 500 mgd, between 1979 and 2006. Given this margin, should we really have to come begging in order to free up conservation and flood mitigation releases?

It might seem unfair to ask the city to pass off the cushion it created by its own conservation efforts to others. But when it comes to sacrifice, those who saw their villages drowned to create the reservoir system in the first place, who undergo restrictions in the use of their own land, and who see lower tax income from city-owned property, still come out on the short end. Nor is the sacrifice over. New York City just received a 10-year extension of the exemption allowing it to avoid filtering water from the Catskill/Delaware watershed. This is good news for the city—a filtration plant would cost $6 to $8 billion. But the extension approval is conditional on massive new land acquisition, further shrinking upstate tax bases. One party wins, the other loses. Shouldn’t there be a balance?

The 800 mgd assigned to New York City by the Supreme Court decree of 1954 reflects neither the flexibility made possible by conservation, nor the fact that New York City’s right to water ought to be part of a quid pro quo, not a divine right that it may or may not condescend to share with others. There is probably no way to change that short of another Supreme Court decision, but in the long term such a change, even if it requires another court case, might be worth pursuing.

In the meantime, the revised FFMP will probably be the best solution that can be achieved under the circumstances. It doesn’t have to be the last word, but it is better than what we’ve got now, and its approval would represent a step forward.

Dr. Punnybone

The Last Time I Saw Paris