The Town and the City

In 1996 the publisher of this newspaper and others in town fought bitterly in private with our late Supervisor Neil Grant over the town's reluctant acceptance of the Memorandum of Agreement with New York City. Grant fought hard for Shandaken and held off signing as long as he could. But ultimately he believed if he didn't sign the town would end up with nothing,and the City with whatever it needed anyway. He may have been right or maybe things could have turned out differently than they did. In retrospect it's all conjecture.

Most of us who believed we shouldn't have signed weren't objecting to the MOA in principle at all. And in practical terms had we signed or not signed, DEP would still have the same local regulatory authority it does now. What upset us then - and still upsets a lot of us - is that we believed it was a bad deal for Shandaken. Because for less than $8 an acre, a one-time $600,000 "Good Neighbor" payment, our town accepted the principal that whatever the City was willing to pay for a solid working partnership to protect its water was ultimately acceptable.

We didn't think then and we don't think now, that 122 square miles of prime watershed protection is worth less than the price of a 1-bedroom apartment in Queens. And we believe just as we did seven years ago, that the whole MOA - most of the Watershed Protection programs, the Fund for the Future, just about all of it - is completely, totally, and inappropriately under-funded by the City. If there's a solution to that it's a NYC political solution, expressed in dollars. And yes, the watershed towns do have the ability to bring the issue to a crisis anytime by threatening to withdraw from the MOA. That could cost the City tens of billions if it has to filter its water, all because they can't find a tiny fraction of that to pay for what they need more appropriately. No one knows whether the Bush Administration would permit the US EPA to compel that filtration and it's exorbitant cost to the City's taxpayers. But it's a possibility Mayor Bloomberg can't rule out. So while we can't make it rain on cue, we might be able to make the sky fall for the City's taxpayers. But it isn't likely to happen without very good, compelling reasons. And though we've heard much from various quarters of late on the City's role in the Belleayre Resort review, those aren't the kind of reasons likely to make the sky fall.

We agree with the position taken by the Coalition of Watershed Towns, Shandaken's Town Board, and Crossroads Ventures that the City should limit its review of that project to areas that directly impact water quality. Not being scientists however, we're not willing to say that secondary growth for instance, or traffic issues don't impact water quality : potentially they certainly could. But whether they will or won't in the Belleayre Resort case can only be understood by someone studying them. DEC, the Lead Agency, can't seem to bring itself to ask Crossroads for the SEQRA money it's entitled to for that exact purpose. Now there's a political mystery. In the midst of the worst budget crisis in State history, the agency's chosen to spend its own operating budget for the review, instead of funds the developer's already set aside for them. Go figure. Shandaken doesn't even have the $930 to buy a copy of the project's DEIS to look at. And DEP will likely do whatever it feels it needs to anyway, no matter what's said about it in the watershed. So yes, we should object in principle when the City overreaches its bounds, and we have in Shandaken. But to insist DEP has no right to consider what might impact the water as opposed to what clearly doesn't is just grandstanding, and if we do that, we shouldn't have any illusions it'll make much difference.

What could make a difference though is a grown-up kind of acknowledgement within the watershed of our real economic interdependence with the 10 million people downstate who rely on our water every day. Hopefully this isn't a news flash for some, but the watershed is not at war with DEP. We are however in a relationship and like most relationships it has its issues.

One difficulty is the perception of some that we're in a relationship with an 800 pound gorilla. Another is that from time to time DEP acts like an 800 pound gorilla, for instance in its choice to, and its challenge of its tax assessment in Olive, finally resolved last year in that town's favor. That kind of thing happens all the time when one party has to worry about spending real money from a small taxpayer base to go to court, while the other has hot and cold running attorneys and paying them's not a factor. That's a gorilla tactic,

whether the City uses it against one town or a developer uses it against another. In both cases when legal costs are wielded as a club, it generally means the wealthier party's not interested in negotiated resolution. We have to be more real than that, and we can do it. Shandaken's proof was the Pine Hill Water deal, where Supervisor Di Modica and developer Dean Gitter showed each other and the rest of us that whatever differences separate the parties, negotiation can work. It's a lesson we should hang onto and apply where we can.

The City and DEP are not our adversaries. And while we may not exactly be intimate, they are our partners, and that's not some kind of buzzword. DEP needs our political cooperation even more than we need theirs financially, and they have both the compelling reasons and the tax base to keep the partnership on track. The bottom line is that protecting the quality of life here and the quality of the water there aren't just compatible goals, they're actually dependent on one another's success. And while DEP hasn't been the easiest partner to get along with, so long as what works for them can be made to work for us, there's no reason that can't change.