New York City environmental officials say they are spending $7.8 million to purchase more than 1,300 acres of land in the city’s upstate watershed.
http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100825/NEWS90/100829868
When filmmaker Josh Fox discovers that Natural Gas drilling is coming to his area—the Catskillls/Poconos region of Upstate New York and Pennsylvania, he sets off on a 24 state journey to uncover the deep consequences of the United States’ natural gas drilling boom. What he uncovers is truly shocking—water that can be lit on fire right out of the sink, chronically ill residents of drilling areas from disparate locations in the US all with the same mysterious symptoms, huge pools of toxic waste that kill cattle and vegetation well blowouts and huge gas explosions consistently covered up by state and federal regulatory agencies. These are just a few of the many absurd and astonishing revelations of a new country called GASLAND.
http://www.gaslandthemovie.com/wp/
Coverage on NPR
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127593937
New regulations announced Friday for natural gas drilling in the New York City and Syracuse watersheds will create a bureaucratic hurdle that effectively prevents drilling there, defusing concerns about possible drinking-water contamination
Continued…
New York City recently announced the purchase of another 1,026 acres of land for watershed protection, Mercedes Padilla, New York City Department of Environmental Protection spokeswoman, said Friday.
Read the full story at The Daily Star http://www.thedailystar.com/local/local_story_100040028.html
Orange County has dropped its lawsuit against Kiryas Joel’s proposed water pipeline, removing the only legal obstacle to plans to tap the Catskill Aqueduct as a new water supply for the growing community.
Read the full story at recordonlne.com
http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100330/NEWS/100339974
A new stretch of open water surrounded by breathtaking scenery will be available for recreational boating at the Cannonsville Reservoir this summer.
New York City Environmental Protection Commissioner Cas Holloway announced that the additional five square miles of Cannonsville Reservoir will be open at the start of this year’s boating season May 28.
Read the full story at the link below
http://www.thedailystar.com/local/local_story_085040027.html
New York City is acquiring an additional 685 acres of land for watershed protection, New York City Department of Environmental Protection spokesman Michael Saucier said earlier this month
Read the full story at The Daily Star website
http://www.thedailystar.com/local/local_story_071081651.html
New York State’s attorney general, Andrew M. Cuomo, has reached a settlement under which five hospitals and nursing homes agreed to stop flushing pharmaceutical waste that could potentially contaminate New York City’s water supply.
The five health care sites, in Delaware and Putnam Counties, had been flushing painkillers, antibiotics, anti-depressants, hormones and other pharmaceuticals into sinks and toilets, Mr. Cuomo said at a news conference on Tuesday.
Read the full story at
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/12/five-sites-agree-to-stop-flushing-pharmaceutical-waste/
Under some of the most beautiful parts of rural New York State in the pre-Jurassic era formation called the Marcellus Shale is an unimaginable fortune in natural gas. Getting that gas to market has become an obsession of Wall Street and the biggest gas drilling companies in the world. In this gas rush, New York is fast becoming a geological science experiment that many experts fear will have profound, dire environmental and health consequences
Click here to read the full article
The Environmental Protection Agency said that it would overhaul enforcement of the Clean Water Act, as lawmakers sharply criticized the agency’s decade-long lapses in punishing polluters, read more at the NY Times website.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/16/business/energy-environment/16water.html
Steel yourself, Sullivan County. When the natural gas rush hits the Catskills — and it will — your life and land will profoundly change. This is the inevitable conclusion to be drawn from the drilling boom in neighboring Susquehanna County, Pa., an area that sits on the same gas-rich Marcellus shale formation as Sullivan. Times Herald-Record
http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091018/NEWS/910180327
The whole natural gas question in this country is a complicated one. On one hand, we have oodles of the stuff, it’s relatively low carbon, and it would seem to be a sensible pillar of our country’s energy future. On the other hand, extracting it from Mother Earth does nasty stuff to the water supply. How nasty? Check out this video shot in Fort Lupton, Colorado, a little town just north of Denver’s northernmost suburban sprawl.
http://www.infrastructurist.com/2009/10/14/new-trend-flammable-tap-water/
The NYC DEP opens land to recreational uses without city permit. See the article below from The Daily Star’s website
A New York City Department of Environmental Protection permit will no longer be needed to access approximately 13,000 acres of city-owned land in the Catskills.
http://www.thedailystar.com/local/local_story_315040015.html
Tap’dNY is a New York City bottled water company with a local twist, check them out at http://tapdny.com/
Using NYC’s award winning public water system, they purify the water through reverse osmosis and bottle it locally.
Whether you live in NYC or enjoy the recreational activities in the NYC watersheds, this site offers helpful information and helps you to get involved.
NYC Water Supply News