Solving Environmental Problems Through Collaboration
A Case Study
For EPA personnel and partners who wish to implement collaborative problem solving projects effectively,
New York City Watershed Partnership
The goal of the New York City Watershed Partnership is to work in close cooperation
with both government and non-governmental partners to protect the unfiltered drinking
water supply of nine million people while promoting economic viability and preserving
the social character of the communities located in the upstate watershed.
Background
New York City's drinking water system,
the largest unfiltered system in the
nation, serves eight million City
residents, one million residents in
Westchester, Putnam, Orange, and
Ulster counties, and millions of
commuters and tourists each year.
Ninety percent of the water comes from
a 1600 sq. mile area in the Catskill
Mountains known as the Catskill/
Delaware (Cat/Del) watershed.
Agriculture is one of the major land uses
in the source water protection areas,
upstate from New York City. Dairy and
livestock farming present one of the
greatest non-point source pollution
challenges to the comprehensive
source water protection program. Other
pollution sources being addressed are
sewage treatment plants, septic
systems and storm water runoff. Land
conservation is a critical issue as well.
Two challenges requiring reconciliation
were: 1) the public health and
environmental resource protection
interests of a large and distant city with
the farming community's desire to
maintain an agricultural way of life in the
watershed and 2) New York City's
interest in protecting water quality with
those of upstate communities, including
upstate New York's interest in
maintaining economic viability.
How Filtration Avoidance
Determination Helped All
Parties to Move Forward
In 1997, multiple partners entered into
the Watershed Memorandum of
Agreement (MOA) and ended an
impasse that blocked the City from
promulgating updated watershed
regulations and securing a necessary
state license allowing it to acquire land
in the watershed. The resolution of
these and other issues was a
prerequisite to EPA's reissuance of a
Filtration Avoidance Determination
(FAD).
The FAD, reissued in 2002, allows the
Cat/Del watersheds to remain unfiltered
because of the very high quality of the
water supplies. To ensure that those
supplies remain high quality in the
future, the FAD requires NYC to
implement a wide range of watershed
protection programs, at an investment of
approximately $1.4 billion. Filtration of
the Cat/Del system would have cost the
City $6 - $8 billion. Successful
implementation requires close
cooperation with different levels of
government as well as numerous non-
governmental stakeholders.
Why the New York City
Watershed Partnership
Worked
The New York State Governor's office
and EPA played a key role in getting the
negotiations moving by bringing
together all watershed stakeholders,
including several environmental groups
and a coalition of watershed towns.
The seven source water counties of the
Cat/Del watershed, watershed
municipalities and a number of
environmental groups signed the
Watershed MOA in 1997. The
partnership also includes the
agricultural community and the federal
government.
Albany
East of
Hudson
fshed
New York City
The MOA recognized the varied and
often divergent interests of the partners
and created a framework for
compromise and accommodation on
many of the most contentious issues. It
created a Watershed Protection and
Partnership Council with senior level
participation from the various partners.
The Council meets regularly to assess
progress and resolve disputes, and
provides a mechanism for addressing
controversial issues in a constructive
way.
For farmers concerned about the
potential economic impact, New York
put aside its purely regulatory approach
and entered into a partnership to carry
out a locally developed and
administered voluntary Watershed
Agricultural Program which promotes
and supports environmentally-protective
farming practices. The farmer-led
Watershed Agricultural Council has
been very successful in recruiting
farmers to participate in the program.
Because it was in place prior to MOA
negotiations, this is the one partnership
program that is not in the MOA.
It has been of great value over the years to
have an entity such as the [Watershed
Protection and Partnership] Council. In the
eyes of many watershed stakeholders, the
legitimacy of the partnership is measured
against the ideal of a participatory democracy.
No one with something to offer this endeavor
is left out of the process.
- William C. Harding, Executive Director
Watershed Protection and Partnership Council
New York Department of State
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What Made the New York
City Watershed
Partnership Unique?
The Safe Drinking Water Act requires
that all drinking water taken from
surface water sources be filtered to
remove microbial contaminants. The
law allows EPA to waive this
requirement for water suppliers if they
demonstrate that they have an effective
watershed control program and that
their water meets strict quality
standards.
EPA provided the major impetus for
serious negotiations on a viable
program to safeguard the city's water
supply by stating the clear intention to
require the city to filter its Catskill/
Delaware water supply system (at a cost
of several billion dollars) unless it
substantially strengthened the existing
watershed protection program. By
offering substantial financial and
technical support for local projects and
programs, New York City successfully
negotiated with multiple stakeholders,
and collectively, the partners developed
creative solutions to numerous
contentious issues.
Lessons Learned
This watershed program demonstrates
the economic advantages of innovative
partnerships. It is possible to meet
downstream water quality goals as well
as upstream economic objectives
through voluntary partnerships, and
implementing community-based
watershed protection. The initiative
also showed that by protecting
reservoirs and areas surrounding
source waters it is possible to supply
water for a massive urban population
without the need for expensive filtration
or chemical treatment. The key to this
program's success is stakeholder
involvement in a participatory process
guided by local leadership. Other
lessons that can be drawn from this
case and applied to similar situations:
• A clear vision of goals is crucial to a
program's success.
• Local leadership is central to
successful participatory programs.
• Finding creative methods for
technical/financial assistance
enables key cooperators to
participate.
• Early buy-in from stakeholders with
unsettled perceptions of regulators is
essential.
• What happens upstream in a
watershed can have a profound
effect on conditions downstream.
Economic development policies
must be connected to sustainable
management policies.
• Watershed protection need not
focus on control of specific pollut-
ants, but might promote environmen-
tally healthy landscapes. Healthy
landscapes that include agriculture
not only result in cleaner water, but
provide food and promote economi-
cally sound rural communities.
Results
• Congressional appropriations of $39
million to date.
• New York City has purchased, or
protected by easement, 63,000 acres
of upstate land to safeguard the
drinking water supply as well as to
preserve rural community character.
• The program resulted in a portfolio
of non-regulatory, integrated alterna-
tives that focused on local leader
ship, environmental monitoring and
education, and voluntary participa-
tion in pollution prevention and
control.
• Interdependence of long-term
watershed protection and enhanced
profitability of privately owned
agricultural and forestry land was
maintained and enhanced.
Keys to Collaboration
Exemplified
Agency experience and academic
research suggest there are seven keys
to successful collaborative problem-
solving (http://www.epa.qov/epainnov/
collaboration/seven keys.htm) Five of
the seven keys are apparent and
exemplified through the New York City
Watershed Partnership.
A shared problem between New York
City and upper New York State:
reconcile the public health and
environmental resource protection
interests of NYC with upstate interests to
maintain economic viability, particularly
through farming.
As the committed leader, New York
City had the most at stake: Financing
an $8 billion dollar filtration system for
drinking water.
As the conveners of stature, The New
York State Governor's Office and EPA
brought together all watershed
stakeholders.
The representatives of substance-
seven source water counties, watershed
municipalities, a number of
environmental groups, the agricultural
community, and the federal
government—all signed a Watershed
MOA.
The Watershed MOA succeeded in
outlining a clearly defined purpose:
maintaining the quality of the Cat/Del
watershed's drinking water through
voluntary implementation of a wide-
range of watershed protection
programs.
For More Information
New York City Watershed Protection
Team
(212) 637-3554
http://www.epa.gov/innovation/
collaboration
United States
Environmental Protection
Agency
Office of Policy,
Economics and Innovation
(1807T)
June 2006
EPA-231-F-06-005
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