Review of the New York City Watershed Protection Program (2020) / Chapter Skim
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7 Land Protection and Management Programs
7 Land Protection and Management Programs
Pages 201-222
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recreational access program. The Land Acquisition Program has been a controversial part of the Watershed Protection Program from the beginning, given its central importance to complying with the Surface Water Treatment Rule (SWTR)
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. Program Descriptions For the various components of the Land Acquisition Program shown in Table 7-1, the following sections discuss the dates of implementation, the geographic extent, the funding, and how each program operates in detail, including how lands are prioritized for acquisition.
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: Priority 1A – Sub-basins near intakes within 60-day travel time to distribution, Priority 1B – Other sub-basins within 60-day travel time, Priority 2 – Other sub-basins within terminal reservoir basins, Priority 3 – Sub-basins in nonterminal reservoirs with identified water quality problems, and Priority 4 – Remaining subbasins in nonterminal reservoir basins. FIGURE 7-1 Priority areas for the fee-simple Land Acquisition Program.
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Water Supply Permit have maintained the same minimum size limits on the WOH Land Acquisition Program since program inception. These limits are at least 1 acre if inside priority area 1A, at least 5 acres in priority area 1B, and at least 10 acres in priority areas 2, 3, and 4 (NYS DEC, 2016)
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Tax parcels with structures are excluded from further consideration for land acquisition. Easements may contain a smaller tax ("homestead")
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Initial costs are generally lower than fee-simple acquisitions, but require a long-term program of monitoring and enforcement to ensure that the requirements of the easement continue to be met over time, including with future ownership changes. From 1997 to 2016, NYC conservation easements represented about 17-18 percent of the acres protected by the Land Acquisition Program (NYC DEP, 2016; Table 7-1)
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. Flood Grant Buyout Programs Two programs in the Land Acquisition Program purchase properties and limit their future use for the purposes of flood protection.
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. Land Acquisition Program Effectiveness As conceived and mandated in the MOA and FAD, the program metrics for the fee-simple program focus solely on the number of acres solicited for purchase with specific dollar commitments by the NYC DEP.
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Land Protection and Management Programs 209 A B FIGURE 7-4 Percent of protected lands in the west-of-Hudson watershed in 1997 (A)
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210 Review of the New York City Watershed Protection Program FIGURE 7-5 Percentage of land protected by reservoir watershed as of August 2018. Figure in color at https://www.nap.edu/catalog/25851/.
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Smaller parcels and portions of larger parcels with physical attributes that create a risk of water quality degradation can be important contributors to long-term protection of the water supply. Community Concerns The structure of the Land Acquisition Program is directly responsive to the initial concerns raised by the watershed communities when NYC first proposed its watershed protection program in 1993.
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From page 212... ...
on the "Extended New York City Watershed Land Acquisition Program." As NYC DEP approaches the projections in the FEIS, solicitations by NYC DEP would be limited, and only owner-initiated transactions would be allowed. In addition, NYC DEP has been working with local governments to subdivide certain purchases, separating off and reserving the gently sloping, well-drained, upland portions to allow local development while protecting more sensitive areas of the parcels.
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, that offer development or relocation potential. Section 21 of the 2016 Water Supply Permit, titled Land Held in Perpetuity for Watershed Protection, provides that the NYC DEP grant a conservation easement to NYS DEC to ensure that all land acquired in fee under the Land Acquisition Program be held in an undeveloped state in perpetuity.
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. For this to be effective, from both a water quality improvement and economic standpoint, the Land Acquisition Program would need to allow for smaller minimum acreage requirements for purchases (as noted above often only 5-20 percent of the land generates the majority of the pollutant load)
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Thus, there should be a comprehensive evaluation of the relative risk that each potential easement parcel represents to water quality, and those parcels with a high risk should be removed from production, or the intensity of production should be reduced. Ideally, this would be coupled with a more flexible Land Acquisition Program, which would allow land taken out of production to be balanced by land swapped from NYC DEP's current holdings that constitute a lower water quality risk.
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Before the Land Acquisition Program greatly expanded the NYC's landholdings, this management regime applied to relatively small areas around the six reservoirs. At the same time, outdoor recreation enthusiasts and groups took note of more extensive programs developed in the 1980s by comparable water supply agencies in the northeastern United States (e.g., South Central Connecticut Regional Water Authority1 and the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority2)
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, it is clearly having a positive influence. The most recent and impressive addition to the program -- the Ashokan Rail Trail, a partnership between Ulster County and the NYC DEP -- is the marquee example of the post-MOA transformation of the recreational access program (Figure 7-7)
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, the fourth and most detailed level of the website and FIGURE 7-8 Interactive map showing recreational opportunities on NYC DEP land in the west-of-Hudson watersheds (upper) and an enlargement of the area around the Pepacton Reservoir (lower)
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The no-cost permit system for most uses has logged nearly 200,000 users to date. In its current form, the NYC DEP Recreation Program is an excellent example of a partnership approach to watershed protection that transformed a pre-MOA source of conflict into a valuable and manageable asset for the city, state, and the Catskills region.
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Making the Land Acquisition Program more flexible and cooperative would allow NYC DEP to focus acquisition on the most valuable lands for water quality protection while recognizing legitimate concerns for community development. During the next 10- to 20-year phase of the Watershed Protection Program, a refocused program could concentrate on purchases that protect the riparian zone, while maintaining the ability to respond to development pressures that pose risks to water quality in headwater tributaries (e.g., areas with steep slopes and shallow soils)
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This flexibility appears to be permitted in the FAD, and the reduction of program funding "silos" would allow program managers to respond more quickly to land acquisition opportunities and changing circumstances. The partnership approach and subsequent improvements in recreational access on New York City Department of Environmental Protection land is an excellent example of mutually beneficial collaboration by New York City, county governments, and watershed communities.
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- The Extended New York City Watershed Land Acquisition Program CEQR No. 10DEP046U December 10.
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