Wise protection of NYC watershed
Ski scene on Belleayre Mountain, part of the New York City watershed (2007) Credit: Belleayre Mountain
To quench the thirst of the greatest city in the world and the millions who live, work and visit there, New York maintains one of the highest-quality municipal water systems anywhere. It depends on the preservation of the watershed that feeds the city's upstate reservoirs. So, in any year-end summary of Albany's activity, the state's preservation of 1,200 acres of that watershed deserves celebration.
The land is east of the state's Belleayre Ski Center in Ulster County. The $5.6-million purchase is the result of long negotiations among the City of New York, the state Department of Environmental Conservation, environmental groups and the developer who owns the land and wants to build a resort there. It's a bright mark on the first-year scorecard of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, but it was former Gov. Eliot Spitzer who brought about a conceptual agreement in principle with the developer, Crossroads Ventures Llc, in 2007. It set out a plan for preserving land, expanding the state's Belleayre center, and allowing the developer to build a reduced-size resort on his remaining land on the other side of Belleayre.
The 1,200 acres will now become part of the Catskill Forest Preserve. But the developer still plans to build a four-season resort, including skiing and golf. Cuomo should make sure the environmental reviews for that project carefully balance the state's needs for drinking water and economic development. And he should recall another lesson of this transaction: The money for the purchase comes from the Environmental Protection Fund, which governors have been too willing to raid for purposes other than environmental protection. He should keep the fund ready for sterling uses like this.
