Today, the Daily Freeman has a revealing interview with James Tierney, the assistant commissioner for water resources at the state's Department of Environmental Convervation.
The topic is New York City's decision to clear out its Ashokan reservoir this winter by releasing muddy water into the Esopus Creek. Last week, the DEC made headlines by fining the city's Department of Environmental Protection $2.6 million for water pollution.
This interview with Tierney shows that the DEC's decision to punish the city is a recent one:
"While I don’t want to get into why we didn’t take action earlier, and we are under an enforcement action right now, the considerations involved are pretty difficult,” Tierney said. “The considerations are the city turned it on and it didn’t want turbid water flowing into that 70 billion gallon east basin and didn’t want turbid water to flow down the Catskill Aqueduct into the Kensico Reservoir.”
Judging from that quote, the DEC seems to sympathize with the DEP's impossible engineering project: how to keep a reservoir clean without contaminating any of the water around it with its excess pollution. It also looks like the decision to fine the DEP might have been a reaction to the public outrage. Ulster County Executive Mike Hein should be pleased.
Earlier: Our muddy Esopus coverage.
