On Friday, town and village officials from municipalities along the lower Esopus, as well as the state Department of Environmental Conservation, met with the New York City Department of Environmental Protection to talk about muddy water. Specifically, the muddy water that flows from the Ashokan Reservoir into the lower Esopus, whenever the DEP decides that the reservoir is silty enough to be dangerous to the health of the 9 million New Yorkers who drink from it.
After Friday's meeting, the DEP released the following statement:
Following today’s productive meeting, DEP has agreed to use the Ashokan Waste Channel to release clear, high-quality water into thelower Esopus Creek for the first-time ever. The amount and frequency of the releases will be coordinated through a newly-formed working group made up of DEP, State DEC and local stakeholders, and will take into account turbidity levels and drought concerns. We are confident that this decision will help address some of the concerns raised by interested groups in the lower Esopus. The impact of this initiative will be most pronounced during the summer months when portions of the creek typically run dry, without affecting the quality and supply of our drinking water. This new initiative is made possible because of DEP’s multi-million dollar investment in our new Operations Support Tool, a high-tech computer application which allows us to better predict reservoir-specific water storage levels, quality, and inflows, which gives us a level of certainty that was not previously possible about when it is safe to release water without unnecessarily depleting the water supply of nine million New Yorkers.
We'll be following this issue, and the new working group, as things progress.
Here's a little more background on the Operations Support Tool, the DEP's latest $5.2 million software toy.
