Rockland County Water Issues

 

Sometimes it feels like a surprisingly suspenseful novel in installments. Our story is about an eight-year struggle in Rockland County to defeat an energy-intensive desalination proposal and replace it with a sustainable water policy. As we write the next chapter, Rockland County is once again facing a key decision from the NYS Public Service Commission (PSC). We’re asking the public to submit written comments by December 9. The PSC must know that Rockland County is watching its next decision very closely.

 

In the last chapter, in December 2015, the PSC ordered Suez, a multinational water company, to abandon plans for a desalination project on the Hudson River for Rockland County’s drinking water. It was to be just downstream from the Indian Point nuclear power plant. For the past eight years, activists in the Rockland Water Coalition, including the Sierra Club, have worked toward the goal of a plan that would conserve both water and energy. Instead, Suez proposed the desalination project, which would have jeopardized irreplaceable Hudson River habitat.

 

The next installment finds us at another critical fork in the road. The PSC is poised to make a decision on Suez’s plans for the next five years. Suez also proposes to charge Rockland County ratepayers $54.1 million for its failed desalination project. If these charges are approved, ratepayers could pay as much as a breathtaking $82 million, including interest, for a project that never even started construction.

 

Public participation was crucial in stopping this ill-conceived desalination plan. Now we need the public again to submit written comment — as soon as possible — to tell the PSC that Rockland County says NO to the outrageous corporate bailout and YES to strong water conservation plans.

 

Unfortunately, Suez proposes to do the minimum conservation and leak repairs ordered by the PSC, despite expert comment that Rockland County could more than double water saving through conservation and repair of leaks, at relatively low cost.

 

Your voice is needed at this critical juncture. Will Rockland County move ahead with a cutting-edge conservation plan that maximizes the smartest conservation methods and puts consumers and the environment first? Or will the PSC instead approve Suez’s inadequate conservation and repair plans that could ultimately force us to foot the bill yet again for a far more expensive new supply source in just a few years?

 

If we succeed, we’ll be helping to forge new ground for water policy in the state. Rockland County’s water issues could become a testing ground and model for a more forward-thinking water policy for our state and for the northeast. 

 

Please send your brief written comment to the NYS PSC before December 9.

Find more information online at www.sustainablerockland.org or email rocklandwater@gmail.com. This could be our last chance before a PSC decision to get Rockland’s water on the right path to a financially sound and environmentally sustainable plan.