More than 40 people gathered on the steps of the Rockland County Courthouse Monday afternoon to speak out against United Water’s proposed desalination plant in Haverstraw.
At the press conference, the Rockland Water Coalition handed over petitions with more than 24,000 signatures from Rockland residents opposed to the plant to State Senator David Carlucci. Carlucci is going to take the petitions with him to Albany.
“We have to put people first and make sure the water that we’re drinking is safe and something we feel confident that our children can have, and future generations can feel confident and safe in drinking,” he said.
The coalition formed in direct response to the proposed plant, according to George Potanovic, a member of the group. The plan was first proposed in 2007 with intent on producing drinking water for Rockland residents by treating Hudson River water to supplement the county’s potable water supply. The following year, the coalition formed and is made up of 23 local and regional environmental and civic organizations, such as Riverkeeper, Clearwater, Scenic Hudson, Rockland AARP and New York State Sierra Club.
“For the last four years, the Water Coalition has carefully watched the progress of this proposal through environmental review process, through the SEQR environmental review process, and we’ve fully participated in that review. There’s been a number of issues that we’ve raised, both economic [and] environment issues that we think are very significant and issues that were not evident to many people when the proposal was first made,” Potanovic said Monday. “We have submitted these comments through the environmental review process in response to the DEIS, or the Draft Environmental Impact Statement. And that comment period ended on April 20th. So we have participated as much as we can in the environmental review process, and what we want to know now is that our legislators and the governor in Albany are aware there are 24,000 people that are standing with us in Rockland County who have signed petitions saying that they oppose the desalination plant.”
The coalition has a few issues with the proposed plant, including they feel it would discourage water conservation and add to unsustainable overdevelopment. Rockland County Legislature Chairwoman Harriet Cornell talked about the legislature’s comprehensive county plan from 2010, which she would like to see taken into account.
“Haverstraw Bay has to be protected for future generations and that it should become an estuary learning sector,” she said. “Also in our comprehensive plan, we listed a whole litany of water supply recommendations and the first major recommendation is to develop a county water policy and the second is to promote conservation.”
Another issue the coalition has with the plant is they don’t think the added jobs will be worth it when factoring in the costs of improving the infrastructure, expanded sewer treatment. Uniter Water’s impact statement says it will create 10 permanent jobs and temporary positions to construct the plant.
She said she’d like to see more of an effort for water conservation opposed to simply looking to get more water into the county.
Assemblywoman Ellen Jaffee said she’d like to see a conference to provide more information to Rockland residents about the proposed plant. She also congratulated the group for getting so many signatures.
“A group that didn’t have any financial resources did this in a way that really is the basis of our democracy and I’m very impressed with this,” she said. “We should all be impressed with the community involvement and the voice of the community that we have here today.”
There was a small one-person counter-protest going on while the coalition met on Monday. Haverstraw resident John Taggart stood on the courthouse steps about 15 people away from the group holding up signs that read “build the desal plant now” and “a drought proof consistent water supply.”
“I am very much in favor of the plant,” he said. “I don’t think there’s enough people speaking out in favor, so I decided to come out today in support of it.”
While Taggart said it was a bit lonely out on the steps by himself, he added he thinks the plant will do more good than harm for the county, and it will bring in jobs and generate real estate tax revenues. He also thinks it can have a positive impact on the Hudson River.
“It people are drinking from it, maybe they’d be more inclined to take care of it too,” he said.
The only speaker to acknowledge Taggart was Pomona Deputy Mayor Rita Louie.
“This is a better example than I could’ve hoped for,” she said. “There’s 40 of us here and just one person over there. This represents clearly how Rockland feels about this issue.”
It seems to me the people who want to put us under water restrictions will be the ones selling bottled water.
I don't know what the coalition means, do we have to little water or not enough?
You are correct Mr. Taggart, runoff is polluted and it hurts our water supply. We need to prevent runoff - by building in ways that direct the water to absorb into the ground. Then it is just clean rain, and it even gets filtered by the soil on the way into underground aquifers. As for Lake Deforest, did you know that the water getting sent downstream goes right to United Water NJ - and is sold to NJ residents there? Some water should be released from the reservoir - but United Water is releasing more than NJ's share because they are making a lot of money by doing that.
I love the Hudson River, and I hope the efforts to clean it up continue - but taking it for drinking water is a very poor idea. We need proper Land Use policy in Rockland County - so we have less flooding and more drinking water. That's the smart way to get more water. And better land use combined with conservation would be MUCH LESS EXPENSIVE for me and my neighbors here in Rockland - That should be tried before a super expensive desalination plant is built and we - the ratepayers of Rockland County - are responsible for paying it off with higher and higher water bills. Not to mention the expense of sewage processing for all the waste - the salt and contaminants - in the water. The increased sewage processing would lead to higher taxes - who is going to pay for that? I'm surprised at your support for this project, Mr. Taggart. Why do you want this super-expensive, ecologically unsound, radioactive-water-producing boondoggle for the multinational corporation we have the misfortune of having provide our water?
Why draw water from 3.5 miles downstream from that? It's a dumb idea - that should be the last place to get water from. No other body of water in Rockland has any radioactive contamination at all, so why get water from there? Unless we have to - which we do not. And btw: in Toms River NJ United Water was fined by the NJ DEP for concealing elevated levels of radioactivity in the drinking water. Link: http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/400275/water_utilitys_problems_part_of_a_pattern/ As for scare tactics - I'm a regular resident of Rockland. I'm scared - I'm not trying to scare anyone else. I heard about this desalination plan - common sense said it was a really bad idea. So I started to research and find out more. The more I learn about it, the more I see: the Haverstraw Water Supply Project would provide a big profit to United Water and hurt Rockland County's health, environment and pocketbook.
Fact; Rockland is running out of water or is in a precarious water supply situation. According to the NY Public Service Commission (PSC) Rockland MAY be in a negative water supply by 2015. Fact; Almost all of Rockland's water comes from Rockland making it very susceptible to drought and natural events. Fact; The PSC has mandated UW to come up with a new water supply to meet demand by 2015. And yes they did take into account the over-release by UW. Fact; The desalination plant is the only solution that provides a drought free unlimited supply of water form a source outside of the county.
However conservation projects are not capital improvements and therefore there is no investment return, so unless the government invests money in conservation there is no investment and no capital to increase our water supply through conservation
Here is a quote about the risks of tritium exposure from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission website: "What are the possible health risks from tritium radiation exposure? "Along with other national and international regulatory agencies responsible for radiation protection, the NRC assumes that any exposure to radiation poses some health risk, and that risk increases as exposure increases in a linear, no-threshold (LNT) manner. The LNT assumption suggests that any increase in dose, no matter how small, incrementally increases risk. Conversely, lower levels of radiation proportionately decrease the risk, such that very small radiation doses have very little risk. The health risks include increased occurrence of cancer and genetic abnormalities in future generations. Since it is assumed that any exposure to radiation poses some health risk, it makes sense to keep radiation doses as low as reasonably achievable (ALARA)." Link to that: http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/tritium-radiation-fs.html We should limit exposure to radiation as much as possible. That means if there is one body of water in the area that has the potential to expose us to radioactivity - we should not use that one body of water as a source of drinking water.
And that same Nuclear Commission Website you quoted also stated that the amount of any extreme exposure to a lifetime of Tritium water is insignificant compared to a single air-flight or MRI. Sorry but scare tactics do not work against the facts. Of course we should reduce our radiation exposure, but we could easily just take one less air-flight and reduce our exposure far less than not drinking the desalinated water. FYI Don't drink Lake Deforest water it has tritium, although it is no more/less harmful than the water from the desalination plant.
If what you say is true, why are not people challenging the PSCs conclusions instead of attacking UW for doing what they are mandated to do and creating panels of non-professionals and real estate agents. If you want to stop the desalination plant get the mandate removed. And to state that this winter's 'drought' is proof is ridiculous. We are talking about a sustained drought similar to ones we have experienced before.
http://ny.water.usgs.gov/projects/rockland/images/rocklandfactsheet.pdf Also, after the PSC's Joint Proposal in 2006, United Water was fined by the DEC for excess releases of Rockland's water from Lake Deforest. From the DEC's press release: “DEC determined that United Water exceeded its permit limits by some 231 million gallons between June 1, 2007, and Sept. 22, 2007.” United Water was releasing millions of gallons of water - to United Water NJ, for a profit - beyond what was mandated by the reservoir's permit. There is an effort to get the PSC to reevaluate their mandate for Rockland's water - in light of this new information and more that has come to light since the Joint Proposal was drafted.
Given the low recharge rate (average 16 years) and the increasing demand on our water supply, it behooves us to supplement our fragile water supply or risk draconian future action. FYI the 2010 PSC mandates states that the over-release of water was taken into account as was this report.
Ramapo has its wells, Clarkstown has its reservior, and Haverstraw will have its river. That ballances it out. These same environmental groups negotiated the Canadian power line through Rockland,(before Rockland knew). Thats the end of Bowline and 170 million tax dollars, Haverstraw, and North Rockland,