Wastewater Treatment Plants
NYPIRG has grave concerns as to the City's ability to comply with the Safe Drinking Water Act and avoid filtration. Under the Act, the City must be able to demonstrate that "it can control all human activities which may have an adverse impact on the microbiological quality of source water," a burden that will fall primarily on the next Administration following next year's Mayoral and City Council elections. The City's next leaders may be unable to demonstrate such "control" in light of current practices in implementing the MOA.
Violation of FAD Task 312n-1: The City is mandated to ensure that owners of wastewater treatment plants in the watershed "secure DEP approval of facility upgrade plans and compliance schedules" by November 1, 1998. The New York State Attorney General's report on compliance, however, concludes dismal compliance rates.
However, according to an April, 2000 New York State Attorney General's report "Falling Far Behind: A Report on the New York City Department of Environmental Protection's Program to Upgrade Waste Water Treatment Plants Within the New York City Watershed," the City is "grossly behind schedule" in implementing this important MOA program. When completed, upgrade of the plants will remove about 99.9% of the disease-causing pathogens from their discharges." However according to the report, "with 30 steps involved in the DEP's extensive process to upgrade each plant, only 50% of the 102 plants in need of upgrading have even reached step 4.
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