“Taxpayers, residents and businesses would have priority over any contract to sell city water,” said Gallo. “We are not going to be drained of a precious water source.”
That’s unlikely to satisfy some residents who have expressed attitudes ranging from concern to outrage following media reports of the proposal which first emerged last month. Those concerns are expected to be aired at a Tuesday, Oct. 7 meeting of the Kingston Common Council and a water commission meeting the next day. The proposal has stirred concern both in Kingston and Woodstock over everything from the environmental soundness of the bottled water industry to the potential impact of climate change on Cooper Lake watershed. Community activist and Kingstoncitizens.org founder Rebecca Martin said that she was especially concerned that the public was just now learning of the proposal and had not had a chance to weigh in earlier. Martin, who’s posted her running analysis of the proposal and her criticisms of the same on Kingstoncitizens.org, said she’s concerned officials had not taken into account long-term factors like the growth of the proposed Hudson Landing housing development or the findings of a city-sponsored study on climate change.
“This has come up so quickly,” said Martin. “No one really understands quite how the water department has come to the conclusion or has the confidence to say to Niagara, ‘We can meet your needs.’”
Niagara still needs site plan approval from the Town of Ulster to build the bottling plant. That will include at least one round of public comment as required by the State Environmental Quality Review Act; the town board has declared itself lead agency for the SEQRA review. The company must also reach an agreement with the Kingston Water Department on the sale. Martin said that she wants to see the Common Council involved in the process, but it is unclear how much influence city lawmakers have over the deal.
It’s own thing, mostly
The city’s water department, like others in New York State was designed to operate autonomously. The department sets its own budget, establishes rates for service and issues its own bonds. The city charter also gives the department the exclusive right to enter into deals for the sale of municipal water. The department’s independence is by design — Kingston’s water system was built at the turn of the 20th century around the same time as the Ashokan Reservoir, and the first progressive reform movement.
Fearing manipulation or outright plunder by corrupt politicians, reform advocates pushed for the creation of independent bodies to oversee the construction and operation of large, expensive and complex public works.
A century later, the setup leaves elected officials — with the exception of the mayor, who appoints commissioners and holds a vote on the board — largely out of the loop on water department operations.
Strong opposition to the Niagara deal, if it persists, could put that hands-off tradition to the test. Common Council Majority Leader Matt Dunn (D-Ward 1) said that he had already examined portions of the charter relating to the Water Department and concluded that the department’s exclusive authority over sales only extended to residents, not commercial concerns.
“I think the council should have oversight in this case,” said Dunn. “But I guess we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
This is a terrible idea. Reservoir water is for community not a corporate giant to profit from for a quick fix of a monetary nature. They are known to take and take and run aquifers dry and end up suing small towns and cities until they settle to end a battle they can’t win. This company will run Cooper Lake dry and dump chemicals from their plant and end up costing the city of Kingston far more in the end. Water is the war ahead of us folks and it’s starting in our own backyards!
The Kingston water board might have the authority to make this decision unilaterally. But it shouldn’t. This issue should only be decided by the voters in the form of a referendum, one that would give both sides enough time to campaign vigorously so the public can make an informed decision.
This company wants the rights to bottle more than a quarter of the City of Kingston’s water resources. That’s 1.75 million gallons per day from a system that produces about six million gallons. This is a huge percentage of our water.
And the strikes against this proposal are numerous. What if climate change has an impact on the watershed, and in turn we see a 30 percent decrease in daily production? We could suddenly have a very serious water crisis on our hands if this deal were to go through. And the U.S currently consumes about 50 billion plastic bottles annually, which is the equivalent of 17 million barrels of oil. Adding more to this waste stream — of which less than 25 percent is currently recycled — is simply crazy.
If we want to upgrade our water system, let’s do it the proper way — by securing bonds, which can be obtained at interest rates that are lower than the current rate of inflation — and not by giving away a precious resource that may not be here tomorrow.
And I hate to sound like a broken record, but the best thing we can do to ensure a good future for our fair city, whether we are talking about water or anything else, is to get rid of the incompetent, indifferent, and ill-informed Shayne Gallo as our mayor.