Editorial

A Rare Opportunity...
We welcome and applaud the recent decision from the state’s appellate court granting final word on recreation requirements – and opportunities – for the New York City reservoir system to the state Department of Health.
While we’ve long supported, and more often than not approved of the stewardship the City performs for this region, whose role as one of the nation’s oldest and most cherished state parks might be overlooked by many were it not for such oversight, we’ve also had issues… even though many who take umbrage with our views have failed to see so.
We have never been fans of the nitpicking aspects of the City’s legal and accounting departments and the ways in which they go after local assessments and traffic tickets and other matters with a gusto unbecoming of such Goliaths. Just as we’ve never liked the ways in which larger governments of any sort, or major corporations for that matter, tend to pick on those smaller than them, all in the name of profitability, efficiency, “fairness,” or a host of other excuses.
We also haven’t liked the ways in which so many of the battles between our folks and the City have been fought. Sure, we can be blamed somewhat for having a knack for lumping those we oppose into “Us vs. Them” configurations, blaming old scores on newer immigrants to our hills and valleys, even though there’s really little we can do to change the basics of our lives… that we live in a state park, that we inhabit one of the world’s most important watersheds; that New York City dominates our region and will continue to do so as long as the place matters as one of the world’s key cities.
And yet we’ve also taken flack for backing the city on certain issues, such as the recent move to extend to ten years the EPA’s Filtration Avoidance Determination that’s been renewable at five year intervals for a decade now. Why? Because we feel it’s in OUR best interest not to be faced with regulatory changes on such a schedule. Or the fact that a majority of the limits imposed by watershed regs have actually been good for our real estate values, just as the payment for those regs have helped our economies in ways we often can’t see unless we go elsewhere.
Hey, we’re doing pretty well up here in the Catskills compared to much of this country, and especially as far as “rural” areas go.
But we’re getting beyond our point here… which has to do with the opportunities now presented us by the new court-ordered shift in oversight regarding recreational uses for the City’s reservoir lands.
We know a lot of people are crowing about the right to hunt more on city lands. Fine, we say… the seasons are short and timed for seasons when people don’t really want to do other things outdoors. We’re against anything having to do with small arms on such lands, because we’re against small arms (but that’s another story).
More importantly, we think it’s high time people be allowed to boat on the reservoirs, and not just while fishing. We think kayaks and canoes should be allowed on them. We think new trails should be opened up. We think we should be able to swim in those pristine waters.
Hey, we won’t relieve ourselves in the water… and the dangers of poisonous contamination posed by a few swimmers and boaters is far less than that posed by other uses up our creeks or proposed for some of our mountaintops. There’s a lot of water in these places.
Furthermore, we feel the need for better patrolling, for lifeguards and ranger-sorts that would be opened up by greater recreational use of this jewel of our region, would be a boon to our economy. It would give our kids jobs each summer. It would really make our area an equal to similar reservoir systems opened up for public use throughout the nation and world.
It’s been a difficult week for justice, overall, with our nation’s Supreme Court having bogged itself down into close split-decisions on important matters that many feel are pushing some of our key attributes as a contemporary society backwards in relation to our key national problems involving race, gender, age, and class.
Yet on a state level, the appellate court seems to be on we, the people’s side… at least in regards to this case involving our rights to recreate on our region’s greatest lands and waters.
Have a great holiday weekend… and get out to our reservoirs to see what fun we might be missing, and what further opportunities we should all be seeking, now that the chance seems to be ours.
PS