Dam
(1/5/06) When the integrity of a structure like the City’s
Gilboa Dam is in question, there is no real choice as to how
to prioritize between protecting life and property; people
are what matter. So we take no issue with DEP’s decision
to utilize the upper Esopus as its safety valve to draw down
the Schoharie Reservoir and permit the dam’s permanent
repair. This certainly looks like an emergency, many lives
could be at risk in the Schoharie River valley downstream
from the dam, and the agency appears to be responding with
the urgency and seriousness required. Although up to 9 months
will be needed to permanently stabilize the dam, the first
stages may be finished before the height of spring runoff.
That’s of course dependent as the saying goes, on God
willin’ and the creeks don’t rise.
Experience of course, tells us they do. Mystery of mysteries,
fifty and hundred- year floods it seems, hit regularly around
every ninth year. And while it sometimes looks as though that’s
almost predictable, there are parts to the equation that definitely
don’t fall under the heading “Acts of God,”
the big one being the general state of the Esopus and its
banks. There’s nothing “natural” about the
creek’s water level today, when four-fifths of its volume,
over half a BILLION gallons daily is water that, per divine
plan, was supposed to leave the northern Catskills via the
Mohawk River, wherever that runs. Now of course it leaves
through our towns via the giant tunnel that turns the Esopus
the color of Greene County mud.
So strictly speaking it’s totally bogus to even talk
of the kinds of water volumes we’re seeing now in the
Esopus creek bed as a natural phenomenon. And the fact is
that hydrologically our Esopus is less a creek than the open-air
portion of the City’s Ashokan-Schoharie conduit system.
Oh, it’s prettier for sure than most of that system’s
pipes but basically it’s a rock-bottomed New York City
water supply tunnel that’s simply missing its top. And
while that description may lack both poetry or apparent respect
for the creek’s finer qualities, it is precise. What
bothers us though is that for all the Esopus’ critical
necessity to the millions of New Yorkers who drink it, the
City continues to take no responsibility for anything its
water does along the way. And it’s always the same logic
they employ. “Well sure it’s our water and we
control the system” they basically say. But as for maintaining
the creek portion of the conduit, “Nah, we don’t
do that, that’s the state’s problem. That open-air
section of the pipeline was installed by the contractor you
had before us, the one who melted the glaciers. We can’t
help it if he installed a channel too unstable for the water
volumes we need to move through it. If some of your homes
and businesses fall in, you have our sympathy but don’t
bug us about it.”
To be fair, when things actually do flood, the city’s
extra 550 million gallons doesn’t really represent much
of the total volume. Still, here along the upper Esopus, we
pay a price when a creek that’s supposed to normally
carry 1,000 cubic feet of water per second carries 5 or 6
times that volume. And nobody understands this better than
DEP, with some of the world’s best hydrological engineers
to think it through. So we’re not saying they shouldn’t
have the portal wide open now, they have basically no choice.
But we’re also saying, as we have been for years, that
it’s time for DEP to step up and finally begin to manage
to creek with everything that entails. They can do that. They
can solve the problems their water creates as it fills their
reservoirs. They can stabilize streambanks as needed and protect
private property here. It’s just easier for them not
to, because we, collectively, don’t insist they do.
And because we don’t, they get away with it year after
year. And as for the pretext they can’t because DEC
technically holds administrative authority, that doesn’t
hold water. The agencies work fine together, and DEC lacks
the financial resources to do what the city has no problem
financing, and ultimately no choice but to find ways to make
work.
We encourage prayer that winter and spring will pass without
disaster. But the threat of disaster is the only thing that
appears to hold meaningful promise for change to what’s
been a lousy status quo. Our job, should we choose to accept
it, is to make sure the ultimate fix includes proper stabilization
of the Esopus and its banks.
BP
