National Source Water Protection Week
Last week marked the nation’s first Source Water Protection Week, and to celebrate this momentous occasion, we joined with the Greene County Soil and Water Conservation District and local leaders in the Catskills to tour the ongoing $3.7 million stream management project at Red Falls, along the Batavia Kill, in the towns of Ashland and Prattsville.
The project to improve more than 6,000 feet of the Batavia Kill through this portion of Greene County is one of the largest and most complex projects in the history of our stream management program, and it marks the 450th stream project funded by the program since it started in 1996.
This section of the stream has long been eroding the glacial clay and till that surrounds it, making it the largest single source of sediment in the watershed of Schoharie Reservoir. The force of several storms, including tropical storms Irene and Lee in 2011, caused multiple hill-slopes to fail along the Batavia Kill, including some that exceeded 50 feet in height. The Red Falls project gets its name from a waterfall that is located along the Batavia Kill, on property owned by the City and managed for passive recreation.
The stream restoration project at Batavia Kill was broken into several segments because of its overall size and complexity. The first segment was completed this year, and construction on the final sections will start as early as 2022.
We’re proud to highlight that these types of projects have restored the channel stability or vegetation at more than 50 miles of streams across the Catskills. The City has invested more than $200 million in its stream management programs, which seek to limit erosion and flood-hazard risk, protect infrastructure, improve habitat, and protect and improve water quality.
Since 1993, we have spent and committed approximately $2.7 billion toward our source water protection programs. The stream management project at Red Falls underscores why New York City and its watershed partners are considered worldwide leaders in source water protection. The science-based programs have maintained, safeguarded and improved water quality across the reservoir system that now sustains nearly 10 million New Yorkers each day. The success of the source water protection program is worth celebrating with our many partners in the watershed, without whom these efforts would not be possible or effective.
