Thread by @danshapley

It’s been 1 year since @NYSDEC and @HealthNYGov launched the Drinking Water Source Protection Program. Dozens of communities have been hard at work devising plans to protect the rivers, reservoirs and aquifers that provide NYS residents with water.

A #DrinkingWaterWeek 🧵

Protecting the sources of drinking water is both a public health and an environmental justice issue, and of course it’s a climate issue. Why?

Many communities rely on sources of water in communities upstream. The land-use decisions made by planning boards upstream can have significant effects on water quality used by downstream communities that have no power, and rarely any influence.

Where drinking water quality is degraded, communities face higher treatment costs and/or health risks from exposure to contaminants in tap water.

New York State has identified environmental justice areas based on census data related to wealth and race. Among them: many cities and villages that depend on surface water drinking water sources in upstream communities like lakes, rivers, and reservoirs.

The examples are many: Newburgh and Troy rely on reservoirs in neighboring towns. Peekskill relies on a creek that flows through several towns. Poughkeepsie relies on the Hudson River. They have no role in most decisions affecting the quality of water reaching them.

Sometimes risks can include toxic pollution, like in Newburgh where the Air National Guard used and spilled #pfas-containing firefighting foam upstream of its reservoir, and tens of thousands of people are suffering the health consequences.

Many times the risks come from incremental changes, each of which may seem inconsequential on its own. Land-use choices that can degrade water quality include replacing the natural filter provided by forests, wetlands, and stream buffers with pavement, rooftops, and the like.

One of the most impactful pollutants associated with stormwater runoff isn’t a toxic chemical but too much of a good thing: nutrients, which can result from erosion, lawn & farm fertilizers, septic systems, treated sewage, pet wastes and other runoff.

Excess nutrients can fuel the growth of algae, which can react with disinfectants in the drinking water treatment process to create byproducts. Exposure can increase risk of bladder cancer; liver, kidney, central nervous system problems; & reproductive effects.

Some types of algae can produce “harmful algal blooms” or #HABs that produce toxins that are not removed by standard drinking water treatments, and which can cause gastrointestinal distress as well as liver and kidney damage.

Drinking water systems across New York State have exceeded standards for disinfection byproducts, and lakes and reservoirs throughout the state are experiencing HABs with greater frequency.

Water systems will be increasingly challenged by these issues even if land use remains unchanged, because rain patterns are changing, resulting in a greater frequency of intense storms.

This climate change-fueled pattern means that many pollution concerns associated with stormwater runoff will become harder to manage. Risks associated with algae will also become harder to manage because warmer waters increase the risk of algal growth.

The state’s Drinking Water Source Protection Program is necessary (incredibly necessary) and also insufficient, in the face of these challenges.

NYS must also put muscle into its largely dormant Watershed Rules and Regulations, which can actually empower downstream communities to protect their sources upstream. It’s the legal underpinning for NYC’s world-recognized watershed protection efforts. Others deserve to benefit.

Environmental justice policies need to reflect the fact that projects affecting a community’s drinking water supply may have as significant an impact as projects within those same communities. Significant cumulative impacts have to be prevented.

Communities need more information about the climate risks to their drinking water supplies so they understand the risks and develop adequate adaptation plans.

We need to test for and filter more contaminants. For more on that need see this thread from my friend @RJamesHayes

https://twitter.com/RJamesHayes/status/1521136745005395969

We need to expand wetlands protections, which 🙏🏻 we will do, thanks to the NYS Legislature and the legion of advocates who won better protections this year. riverkeeper.org/news-events/ne…

We need you to vote yes on the Clean Air Clean Water Green Jobs Environmental Bond Act this November, to put $$$ into the projects that will be identified by communities developing Drinking Water Source Protection and climate adaptation plans. riverkeeper.org/blogs/ecology/…

Yes we need it all, and probably a fair bit more, because the truth as I see it: we have paid far too little attention to protecting the sources of our drinking water for far too long. The existing laws are riddled with holes. It’s past time, and there’s no time like now.

/end