Going Coastal

Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he usually toasts with red wine, but he switched to tap water yesterday, when the federal government announced the city won’t need to filter its drinking water from the Catskills and the Delaware Valley for at least the next 10 years.While the Catskill-Delaware system remains the nation’s largest source of unfiltered drinking water, the 10-year waiver came as a direct result of a city program aimed at protecting this resource, said Environmental Protection Agency administrator Stephen Johnson.

Since 2001, the city has acquired more than 44,000 acres of land in watershed areas west of the Hudson, and it has committed another $300 million to acquire more land over the next 10 years. This policy is “intended to help stop pollution of our reservoirs by preventing development around them,” Bloomberg said.

The city also plans to build an ultraviolet-light disinfection plant to supplement its use of chlorine.

Ten percent of the city’s water supply lies east of the Hudson, and smaller Croton watershed is not as clean. That’s why the city is building a filtration plant under Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx.

The Catskill-Delaware system provides 90 percent of the city’s drinking water, according to a spokesperson for the city Department of Environmental Protection. A 5.5-square-mile section of southeast Queens still relies on well water.

Speaking to the majority, Bloomberg encouraged New Yorkers to give up on bottled water. “Drinking tap water instead of bottled water is not just easier on your wallet,” he said, “it’s also easier on the environment.”

The EPA has allowed four other cities to avoid filtration: San Francisco, Portland (Ore.), Seattle and Boston.

by patrick arden

metro new york