The water comes from Upstate, NY.
No one outside of NY city reads the NYT.
Posted on 07/19/2006 8:38:58 PM PDT by neverdem
New Yorkers are endowed with certain inalienable rights, among them bragging about the city’s water — so pure it doesn’t need to be filtered, so delicious it is better than bottled.
So it may surprise, perhaps even insult, proud residents to hear that federal officials are worried that the fabled water — coming from the largest unfiltered system in the country — is getting muddier and may have to be completely filtered, at a cost of billions of dollars, if it cannot be kept clean.
For much of the last year, the century-old water system that delivers 1.3 billion gallons a day to the city has been clouded by particles of clay, washed into upstate reservoirs by violent storms in quantities that make the water look like chocolate Yoo-hoo.
To keep the tap water running clear, the city has been dumping 16 tons of chemicals a day, on average, into the water supply as an emergency measure to meet federal water quality standards. The treatment does not change the taste of the water, but the city cannot rely on this stopgap approach forever.
Turbidity — the condition that makes water cloudy and interferes with chlorination to eliminate contaminants — appears to be getting worse because of changing weather patterns and increasing runoff from land development upstate.
If the city cannot find a permanent solution to the silt, it may not be able to avoid building a huge filtration plant that could cost about $8 billion.
Because its water has historically been so pure, New York has largely been exempt from federal rules created in the late 1980’s that require all water systems to be filtered. (A small part of the system, in Westchester, will be filtered in a few years.)
But as federal officials review the city’s five-year exemption...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
What do you expect when you wipe your @ss with the NYT and flush it down?
Not much more than a useless waste of electrons in a rant.
Maybe they could do it cheap by harnessing the hot air and methane that their global Senator produces to generate energy.
Great.
15 billion in federal dollars for moving a highway in Boston underground and plating a garden.
Now 8 billion to filter NYC's water.
Oh oh. Sounds like another "Big Dig" fiasco in the making.
The water comes from Upstate, NY.
No one outside of NY city reads the NYT.
"Because its water has historically been so pure, New York has largely been exempt from federal rules created in the late 1980’s that require all water systems to be filtered."
Interesting that it has not been filtered yet. Bob. Where do you live? Is your town's water filtered? Hmmm?
Well, I always knew there was something in water there. Must be leftitis. How else did hillary get elected?
15 billion in federal dollars for moving a highway in Boston underground and plating a garden.
Now 8 billion to filter NYC's water.
I sure hope you don't live in any Gulf Coast state or California, because then your whine would smack of mammoth hypocrisy.
At least Massachusetts and New York contribute more to the federal coffers than they get back, which is much more than can be said of all the other states declaring "states of emergency" every 3 weeks.
I don't suppose that the wealth generated by the Wal-Marts, Texacos, Halliburtons, Pepsis, Anheiser-Buschs, Hewlett Packards, Boeings,... out here in fly-over country have anything to do with New York & Massachusett's 'contributions'?
I'm just a dumb country boy from "Upstate" New York (the *real* "New York," as opposed to "New York *CITY*"), but I wonder...Why is it so efficient to have the Federal government grab all this money from everywhere, then just dispense it back to the localities? How about this...NYC pays for its water filtration, "Flyover, USA" pays for its costs, etc...?
Oh, wait...that would mean that the bureaucrats don't get their cut taken out, the politicians don't get their saviour complex fulfilled, and we keep the decentralized republic intact. Can't have THAT!
That's right next to Baja, California, right? ;-)
Because that would leave the fly over states short changed...
That's right next to Baja, California, right?
Not really. More like the Bonneville Salt Flats.
Hell, let's take it one logical step further. Why even have a country made up of 50 states?
Seriously though, I don't think anyone in their right mind would claim that it is "efficient" to have a federal authority to collect and redistribute where needed. However, it is (at least in theory) quite necessary.
What would possibly be the alternative in times of emergency...each governor calling up 49 other governors and begging for assistance?
After the Revolutionary War our country was organized precisely in the manner you suggest under the Articles of Confederation...and it was a total train wreck. That's why the founding fathers drafted the Constitution which we all swear by today. They never sold it as "efficient," which is a big reason I believe it is such a stable form of government. Unlike parliamentary systems, it's not designed to act quickly and bow to the latest cultural whim.
My original point in calling out the fella who was griping about MA and NY expenditures is that at least those states are actually paying more than their fair share, so they shoud be cut some slack for massive projects, especially wholly necessary ones like water filtration!
Note:
CT is the state that gets the worst of it. They get back about 60 cents for every dollar they send to Washington.
New York is #4 on the list for number of disaster declarations. (Behind Texas, California and Florida.)Most recent major disaster declaration for NY? July 1, 2006. None this year for the gulf coast states of Alabama, Mississipp, or Louisiana, unlike Mass - most recent May, 2006.
Most recent declarations here:
http://www.fema.gov/news/disasters.fema?year=2006
Running totals by state here:
http://www.fema.gov/news/disaster_totals_annual.fema
The EPA creates unfunded mandates for the locals in this example. Thus, the big city locals are begging for an exemption, and states' rights, no less.
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