NAPANOCH – On a day with biting wind and a sky that alternated between sun and flurries of snow, residents of Napanoch gathered outside the local firehouse to discuss their harrowing experience with the DEP's leaking aqueduct and the yearly floods that have resulted — all while a film crew's cameras rolled.

The crew — comprised of Producer Henry Schipper, Director of Photography Paul Dougherty, and Sound Technician Tom Staton — had come to the Napanoch Firehouse this past Sunday to give residents a forum to air their grievances about the floods, an issue which has begun receiving nationwide exposure over the last few weeks with an article in the New York Times and a feature on the NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams. Schipper, Dougherty, and Staton themselves are exploring the effects of the New York City Department of Environmental Protection's (DEP) leaking Delaware Aqueduct for their tentatively titled two-hour special, Collapse, which may be broadcast on the History Channel as early as May of 2009.

"You've got these hints, indications, that there's this level of rot, decay, and compromise in the infrastructure of the country," said Schipper in an interview shortly after he finished an interview of his own with Wawarsing Town Supervisor Ed Jennings. "Wawarsing is a really vivid example of how dire it can become, and also how out-of-control it is now." During their visit to the Town of Wawarsing, the crew met with Jennings, afflicted residents, and even sat with New York Congressman Maurice Hinchey at Town Hall in Ellenville on Monday.

Schipper's film will take him across the country as he explores other infrastructure crises. One example he provided was a dam in Wolf Creek, Kentucky, which he said is on the Army Corps of Engineers' hot list of dangerous dams, and if it broke, "cities all along the river will flood all the way to Nashville."

"The country is heading toward third-world infrastructure conditions," he explained about what the show seeks to expose. "That's a really serious reality. It's going to be a new reality for America. Your bridges aren't going to work, your roads are going to be slow, your power's going to be unreliable, your water's going to be unreliable, there's going to be health hazards from coast to coast. Your sewage disposal's an environmental disaster, and this is the superpower of the world? What's going on here? These are the problems."

For the residents present at the firehouse on Sunday, the arrival of Schipper and his crew signified the latest in a string of small victories which are slowly bringing them closer to resolution in what has become an ongoing nightmare. While outside the firehouse, Schipper, Dougherty, and Staton swept their equipment from person to person as they each discussed the flood-related woes they've experienced.

The crew heard many of the now-familiar topics the residents have been dealing with, like the thousands of dollars lost in destroyed property and huge electric bills from running sump pumps; the mold which has infested residents' homes, causing nosebleeds and respiratory problems; and the infamous e. coli and coliform bacteria which have been found in residents' wells, forcing them to stop using their running water altogether.

In addition to the meeting with the film crew, residents have been vindicated not only by the aforementioned national attention in the New York Times and on NBC, but also by a small legal victory which will allow more, if not all, of the afflicted residents to reap the benefits of concessions which have been funded by New York City and the DEP in their efforts to act as "good neighbors." After speaking with legal representation from one of the residents, Town Attorney Bill Collier agreed to slightly alter release forms which would have allowed for bottled drinking water to be delivered to residents whose water had become unusable. Prior to the alteration, the form "release[d] the Town of Wawarsing from any claim act, suit, or loss heretofore, now, or hereafter resulting from leaks in the Delaware Aqueduct" — basically meaning that residents, in return for receiving the city-funded and town-facilitated bottled water, would be signing away their right to sue the town regardless of the results of the current tests the DEP is conducting to determine the specifics of the flooding situation.

The new release forms, however, add to the above-quoted sentence, continuing, "…unless such damage was caused by an affirmative act or omission by the Town, its officers, employees or agents in the maintenance of the Town road, drainage and/or culvert systems." The addendum restores the possibility that — should the current battery of tests find negligence on the town's part during the aqueduct's construction decades ago — the town can be held legally liable. According to Julianne Lennon and Laura Smith, the two residents who have acted as the spokespeople for the afflicted residents, the concession is enough to allow them to sign the form, thereby entitling them to the other provisions that the DEP will fund in the coming months, such as ultra-violet water filtration systems (which will supplant water deliveries) and sump pumps.

While they and the rest of the residents acknowledge that it's still a long road until the situation is completely resolved, they seem pleased with the progress they've been making in the months since the connection between the floods and the DEP's aqueduct was first publicized in May of this year.

"Making the right connections is key," said Laura Smith. "When you get the right players into the arena, anything's possible. We had an excellent start, I think.

"We have quite a ways to go, but we have the right players — political advisors, news media, ongoing coverage — [this situation] needs to be known."

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