City’s Catskill Water Gets 10-Year Approval

After an exacting review that lasted several years, federal environmental officials have concluded that New York City’s upstate water supply is still so clean that it does not need to be filtered for another decade or longer.

The Environmental Protection Agency’s announcement yesterday extending the city’s current exemption from filtration requirements means that at least until 2017, New York City will not have to spend as much as $8 billion to build a filtration plant that would cost millions of dollars a year to operate.

About 90 percent of the one billion gallons used in the city each day comes from a system of huge reservoirs in the Catskill Mountains, 120 miles north of the city. The remaining 10 percent is drawn from closer reservoirs surrounded by development in Westchester County and will have to be filtered. A $2 billion filtration plant under construction in the Bronx is scheduled to be operational by 2012.

As a condition for the extension for the Catskill filtration exemption, the city has agreed to set aside $300 million over the next 10 years to acquire land upstate to restrain development that causes runoff and pollution.

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