October 16, 2015
by Peggy Kurtz and Gale Pisha
After years of battles over an environmentally harmful and unsafe proposal for a desalination project in irreplaceable Hudson River habitat, Suez/United Water has asked for a final decision on its proposal.
The NYS Public Service Commission (PSC) set a new public comment period, which ended Oct. 5. More information is avaliable at www.sustainablerockland.org. To read comments to the PSC, go to dps.ny.gov and search case number 13-W-0303; click on the Matter Master link. Pressure from the public has turned around the desalination fight.
During the summer, a stunning report by water conservation expert Amy Vickers showed decades of excessive system losses due to leaking water mains, and the report cited “the snail’s pace” of maintenance. In response to this critical report, the water company bailed out of the Rockland Water Task Force and then asked for the final decision on desalination.
Since 2008, the Sierra Club, as part of the Rockland Water Coalition, has fought this proposal by Suez/United Water to construct a desalination plant for Rockland which would have drawn drinking water 3.5 miles downstream from Indian Point, a leaking nuclear power plant. The plant would have been sited in the richly productive habitat of Haver-straw Bay. The intensive energy use would have resulted in increased greenhouse gas emissions.
Due to hundreds of comments by the public and to the testimony of experts hired by the Rockland Water Coalition, in November 2014 the PSC put the desalination plans on hold and ordered the water company to work with the newly formed Rockland Water Task Force to develop a sustainable water policy of safer, less expensive and far less harmful solutions, which might become a model for the region.
Water expert’s stunning report
As part of its work, the task force hired independent, nationally renowned water expert Amy Vickers to examine the potential of conservation and efficiency for Rockland.
Vickers’ groundbreaking report confirmed what environmentalists have been saying for years: the water company’s pace of system maintenance was way behind recommended standards. Vickers estimates that an accelerated schedule of fixing pipes plus a vigorous conservation and efficiency program can save Rockland up to seven million gallons of drinking water per day, close to what the final desalination plant would produce.
Desalination back on table
Instead of embracing the study’s results as a road map for improvement of its operations and as an opportunity for adding to Rockland’s water supply, the company chose to attack Vickers’ work, withdraw from the task force, and ask the PSC for a final decision on desalination.
No matter whether the decision is to abandon or to build the desalination plant, Suez/United Water will then be eligible to collect up to $49 million it spent for planning costs for this ill-conceived project.
The Sierra Club and the Rockland Water Coalition continue to hire experts to stop desalination for good and support the work of the task force to develop a sustainable water policy. You can help support this effort by sending a tax-deductible check made out to “Sierra Club Foundation,” with “stop desal” in the memo line, to Sierra Club Foundation, PO Box 792, Pearl River, NY 10965.
Peggy Kurtz and Gale Pisha are co-chairs of the Lower Hudson Group Desalination Committee.