Protecting Waterways in the NYC Watershed

New York City and a few other counties in southern New York State receive water from the Delaware and Catskills watersheds. Thanks to stringent environmental protections, this water is mostly unfiltered. To maintain this system, they have to protect the reservoirs, tributaries, and even minor streams from pollutants, especially nitrogen and phosphorus run off from farms in the area.

In places where farm run off has gone unmitigated, like the Chesapeake Bay,  concentrations of excess nitrogen and phosphorus have led to mass algal blooms, which choke the waterway and lead to mass die offs (Wang et al). The kind of environmental protection that ensures NYC’s notoriously good water quality helps prevent this and helps foster biodiversity and protect ecosystems in the region (Van Looy et al).

However, this protection is not without its cost. It limits the growth and flexibility of farmers in the region. The farmers in this area are mostly small and low income and farmers say the restrictions limit their potential economic growth and lack the flexibility to make changes (Church). They also don’t receive the water so they bear the economic cost of an environmental good they can’t benefit from. Additionally, the cost to the city means that this area receives disproportionate funding for water testing for DEP  instead of other waterways that benefit upstate communities.

This program highlights the contrast between the NYC and Upstate regions of New York and the priority placed on NYC at the cost of the poorer upstate communities and the way that sustainable management of an environmental bad can have negative human impacts if not planned or implemented well (Talberth).