Rockland Water Task Force To Present Conservation Plan

ROCKLAND COUNTY, NY — The Rockland County Water Task Force will present a plan Wednesday on ways to conserve enough water to prevent or at least delay having to come up with expensive new sources for the precious resource. The public is invited to attend.

Rockland County gets most of its drinking water supply from the rain and snow that fills its aquifers and the Lake Deforest reservoir. The supply has been challenged during times of drought and hot summer months, when water demand can come close to outpacing supply.

The Comprehensive Water Conservation and Implementation Plan forecasts Rockland’s population to increase from 328,000 people currently to more than 409,000 by 2050.

Since residents and county leaders fought off United Water's plan to construct a desalination plant on the Hudson River to increase water supply, the county has been pursuing conservation as a long-term strategy. The desalination plant— a controversial idea that dominated Rockland's imagination for years—was based on projections that the county's water demand would have surpassed supply by 2015.

After the PSC nixed it in 2014, the commission pointed out that the need could arise again in the near future, and that it was crucial that the community, the company and the PSC explore and adopt all reasonable actions to defer the need for new supply and explore opportunities for alternative sources before 2020.

This new plan includes near-term and long-term options for action and a recommendation for ongoing plan updates every five years.

Rockland County Legislator Harriet Cornell, who chairs the Water Task Force, said it offers a menu of opportunities.

Stakeholders can opt to pursue any or all of the measures, with a few listed below:

• The preparation of a water conservation white paper to present a business case for investing in conservation
• Water-use audit guidance, an educational tool for residents to understand how much water they are using and ways to save.
• The commercial kitchen option would reduce water use in facilities within commercial and institutional kitchens, also helping the facilities to potentially reduce their water bills.
• Lawn and landscape irrigation schedules to reduce outdoor water use.
• Requirements for new construction to include water efficiency standards for indoor and outdoor water use.
• The tying-in of land use or subdivision code variances to a water conservation plan prepared by the developer of any new housing development.

The plan is to be presented by the Task Force’s Conservation Committee, which is chaired by Margie Turrin, Director of Educational Field Programs at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades. The Conservation Committee has worked for two years with experienced conservation consultants.

“In the plan, there are a range of conservation measures identified that communities, businesses and individuals can incorporate into their everyday practices and their long-term planning to bring the water reductions we need as a county,” Turrin said.

The plan also respects the fact that New York State is a home-rule state – meaning villages and towns control their own planning and zoning and does not seek to demand specific measures from municipalities, task force officials said. Rather it encourages all stakeholders, including municipalities, to consider adopting, adapting and implementing the opportunities that work best for them.

“An important aspect of this plan is that education and outreach by the Water Task Force and the County of Rockland will be the key to gathering support by community partners, jurisdictions and stakeholders who will then have access to many different options to conserve water,” Cornell said. “While it is always easier to involve people when they are fighting against something, Rockland is a special place with engaged citizens who care deeply about water issues of supply and quality - and they have already demonstrated their willingness to fight for something worthwhile.”

The meeting starts at 6 p.m. Feb. 19, in the Rockland County Legislature’s Chambers in the Allison-Parris County Office Building, 11 New Hempstead Road in New City.

SEE:

• Water Rate Increases For Rockland County
• Rockland Residents' Input Needed At Water Conservation Workshop March 7
• Task Force Working On Water Conservation In Rockland
• No Drop in Rockland Water Usage under Mandatory Restrictions
  
• $250,000 Grant for Rockland to Study Ways to Conserve Water
• State Public Service Commission Rejects United Water's Desalination Plant, Surcharge
• Rocklanders Question, Protest Hudson River Drinking Water