WAWARSING – Days are getting longer, snow is starting to melt, and flooded residents of Wawarsing are preparing for another season of soaked basements and 24-hour-a-day water pumping. Last Wednesday, members of the Project Advisory Committee (PAC), a resident-led group that oversees the ongoing investigation into the leaks in the Delaware Aqueduct, gathered at the Napanoch Firehouse.

The upshot of the meeting concerned the status of funds being provided by New York City through the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), the agency in charge of the aqueduct's operations and maintenance. Some months ago, the DEP worked out an agreement with Wawarsing's town government to provide flood mitigation equipment like sump pumps and potable drinking water — the latter being funded because many homes' drinking water has been contaminated with bacteria from the disrupted water table in the area. Money has been provided for the delivery of bottled water to the afflicted homes, but city-funding for UV filtration systems and pumps has yet to work its way out of New York City's labyrinthine bureaucratic system.

"The agreement itself is in the last step…it is at the New York City comptroller's office," said Ira Stern, Regional Manager of the DEP's Grahamsville Operations, and lead PAC-representative for the department. "The DEP commissioner has contacted the comptroller's office to make sure that it's a priority…Sorry that it's taking this long. I wish it would have been here by now, but it's not in DEP's hands."

The agreement will provide for $125,000 to the town, with the local municipality then portioning out $600 in vouchers for each household to pay for pumps or other equipment to help them cope with the coming floods. The funds will also pay for the installation of UV filtration systems, but before the systems are installed, each of the afflicted homes will have to go through a pre-screening process by the Ulster County Department of Health to ensure that their water systems are sediment-free enough for the systems to be effective. If not, alternative water-cleaning systems — such as chlorination — will be explored.

Aside from the funding update, the study of the cracked tunnel and its possible role in the flooding of the roughly thirty homes in Wawarsing continues apace. Fred Stumm of the United States Geological Survey (USGS), the federal agency hired to study the tunnel and the area's geological makeup, gave a general update regarding USGS's work. He said that, utilizing new technology, the agency is getting pictures of the geology that they would never have had before. He, and representatives from the DEP, also listened when resident Dave Van Etten recounted a hike he took in the area, finding running spring water amid frozen ground back in February.

"I've lived in my house for 49 years, and I played in these woods when I was a little kid," said Van Etten. "I know these changes."

Riverkeeper Keeps Watch Also on hand at the meeting was James L. Simpson, Staff Attorney for Riverkeeper, an advocacy organization with a 45-year history of working to clean up and protect both the Hudson River and the New York City Watershed. Simpson briefly mentioned that Riverkeeper had just released Preparing to Repair: The Delaware Aqueduct Leak and New York City's Efforts to Repair It, a follow-up to their previous 2001 report, Finger in the Dike, Head in the Sand, both of which analyze what they call the aqueduct's mismanagement by the DEP. Since Riverkeeper's initial 2001 report, the DEP has taken many more steps in working to remedy the aqueduct's leaks, such as repairing access shafts that will allow workers to repair the cracked tunnel itself.

As to what has prompted the forward momentum, in a follow up interview Simpson cited the 2001 report, as well as pressure from New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg and "personnel changes."

"A lot of the old guard has left, people who were very antagonistic towards fixing this leak have departed," he said. "New, more forward thinking management has stepped in."

Regarding Ira Stern's statements about the slow-moving process of getting funds from New York City, Simpson said, "That's not surprising. We have a lot of experience waiting for money from New York City…it takes a long time for something like that to get processed through bureaucracy of New York City."

One of the more startling revelations disclosed in Riverkeeper's latest publications concern how much water has been leaked from the tunnel between the time of the two reports, which calculates the loss using the maximum estimated loss of 35 million gallons per day. Since 2001, the report estimates, the tunnel has leaked as much as 97 billion gallons.

"This amounts to nearly twice the capacity of the Rondout Reservoir, the terminal reservoir for the Delaware reservoir system (49.6 billion gallons.) Put in a linear context, this is the equivalent of 97 billion 1-gallon jugs, 1-foot tall, stacked end-to-end and would extend over 18 million miles: 38 trips to the moon and back, or halfway to Mars…the cost of this water loss amounts to as much as $28 million per year," the report reads.

The next PAC Meeting will be held at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, April 28, at the Napanoch Firehouse.

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