Tell DEC: Require NYC to #stopthemud in Lower Esopus Creek

New York City is once again dumping millions of gallons a day of turbid water from its Ashokan Reservoir into the Lower Esopus Creek. Urge the DEC to demand better ways to manage this water supply in the face of climate change – and protect communities downstream.

The Esopus Creek is dammed to create the Ashokan Reservoir, one of the most important parts of New York City’s unfiltered drinking water supply, which serves over 9.5 million people in New York City and the Hudson Valley. Erosion from severe storms – which will become more common as the climate changes – causes excessive turbidity in the reservoir.

One of the ways New York City manages this challenge is to dump high volumes of muddy water from the reservoir into the Lower Esopus Creek, which flows 32 miles to the Hudson River. These high volume, turbid releases have left the Lower Esopus Creek a muddy mess.

This “solution” is the least expensive way for the DEP to preserve the quality of NYC drinking water, shifting the costs and consequences onto the farmers, businesses, residents and severely affects water quality, wildlife habitat, recreation, and quality of life on the backs of the downstream communities along the Lower Esopus Creek and the Hudson River estuary.

For almost a decade, Riverkeeper and the affected communities have been demanding a full environmental study to address the very real impacts that are seen and felt by the communities.

Instead, DEP has failed to take the required hard look at the range of structural alternatives to minimize or avoid turbid discharges to the Lower Esopus.

“That is not a hard look. In fact, it’s hardly any look at all.”  – Paul Gallay, Riverkeeper President

Some impacts of turbid discharges have not been adequately studied in the DEIS. Among them are the impacts to drinking water intakes in the Hudson River estuary, which are not mentioned at all. More than 100,000 people rely on drinking water from the Hudson.

It’s time for the DEP to take its responsibilities below the Ashokan seriously.

Help us call on the Department of Environmental Conservation to make the DEP take the required hard look at the range of structural alternatives to minimize or avoid turbid discharges to the Lower Esopus.

Let’s demand better ways to manage this water supply in the face of climate change – and protect communities downstream.

Write to Commissioner Seggos and tell him that you are counting on him to protect the Hudson and our communities.

Instructions:

Read the sample letter (below) and edit it as you see fit. Include an opening statement about why this issue is important to you. Personalized letters have a greater impact!  

If you live in the region, describe the impact of muddy discharges on the creek, the Hudson and the communities along their banks. If you rely on drinking water from the region, describe why a well managed water supply is important to you.
Complete the required fields and click “Send Message.”

Recipients

Kristen Cady-Poulin, Environmental Analyst, DEC
Basil Seggos, Commissioner, DEC

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Message

NYC must study alternatives to turbid releases into Lower Esopus Creek

Dear [Decision Maker],

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As someone who cares deeply about the health of the Esopus Creek and the Hudson River, I am writing to urge you to require the DEP to take a hard look at at least three meaningful alternatives to a problem with wide-reaching impacts.

To date, the DEP has failed to consider serious adverse impacts to the Lower Esopus, the surrounding watershed communities, and communities that rely on the Hudson for drinking water. These failures can only be resolved by studying and analyzing the alternatives that the agency has cursorily dismissed.

I call on the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, as lead agency of the State Environmental Quality Review, to exercise its authority and responsibility to:

Require the DEP to take the required hard look at the range of structural alternatives, as identified in the 2013 consent order, to minimize or avoid turbid discharges to the Lower Esopus. Structural alternatives have potential to mitigate turbid discharges to Lower Esopus, if given a hard look and adjusted where necessary, or combined with other alternatives. They include but are not limited to:

- Ashokan Alternative 2 (adjustable dividing weir crest gates, which could be raised to increase West Basin storage volume during high inflow events);

- Ashokan Alternative 8 (bypass tunnel from Upper Esopus to Lower Esopus, which would divert clean water from Upper to Lower Esopus following high turbidity inflows when West Basin remains turbid) and;

- Catskill Aqueduct Alternative 1 (Use of Hudson River Drainage Chamber) to bypass the Lower Esopus and discharge from the West Basin via Catskill Aqueduct to the Hudson River.

The DEP must also study:

- The impacts to the Hudson River as a primary drinking water source for more than 100,000 people in the Hudson Valley, and;

- Threats associated with climate change, which are growing more serious each year, and which require implementation of the alternatives that DEP failed to study.

- All potential and actual short-term, long-term and cumulative impacts on the downstream communities along the Esopus Creek and Hudson River, including impacts on other drinking water systems, the local economy, and the aesthetics of the area.

- The impacts from the releases following the 2020 Christmas storm event, and incorporation of the results of that study into the DEIS.

DEC has a duty to consider all the public comments, and to require revisions and/or supplementation of the current DEIS to capture the concerns raised.

The outcome, and the consequences, are in your hands. Please help us protect our communities and our River.

Sincerely,
[Your Name]
[Your Address]
[City, State ZIP]
[Your Email]