**5. Conclusion**

332 Current Issues of Water Management

After years of study, environmental protection officials in New York City – and state officials representing the Department of Environmental Conservation – concluded that there were two feasible options to forestall threats of federal intervention, by EPA, to institute more strenuous remedial measures. The first was to build an artificial filtration plant, the city's first, at an estimated cost of between \$8-10 billion, with an annual operating expense in the vicinity of some \$360 million. The second option was to restore the Catskill/Croton watersheds through a combination of land purchases, compensation of existing private property owners for growth restrictions (e.g., conservation easements), and subsidies for septic system and other improvements. The city chose this much less-expensive option (at a total cost of approximately \$200 million) – paid for through the sale of municipal bonds

The second option - now known as the *New York City Watershed Protection Plan,* has been effective in complying with federal drinking water standards and delaying the need for a filtration plant. It is based on explicit, legally binding agreements – a Filtration Avoidance Determination (FAD) agreement, and a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA), concluded in January 1997 between several federal, state, New York county and city agencies, as well as various educational and non-profit organizations and watershed coalitions to provide regulatory oversight, perform environmental monitoring, protect water quality, educate the public, communicate about issues pertaining to pollution and watershed stewardship, and provide funding and other assistance to watershed communities (Westchester County

This partnership acknowledges the common interest of both public and private entities - in the city and within the two watersheds - in abating pollution through working together, especially given the limited power of any single entity to abate non-point pollution. Unlike the Los Angeles case, where collaboration on environmental quality issues initially emanated from an adversarial clash of interests, this partnership came about more amicably, while its composition has been similarly diverse. Members include New York City agencies, upstate communities in the twin watersheds, the U.S. EPA and other federal agencies, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) other state agencies, and

One explanation for this comparatively amicable partnership is political realism: most watershed communities would have been adversely affected had New York City been forced to build a drinking water filtration system. This is so for two reasons: 1) the plant would have been paid for by all water users (and, in all likelihood, by regional taxpayers); and, 2) the state - if not the City itself as eminent domain tenant - would have been forced to impose more onerous land-use controls over the watershed if a partnership had not been formed. In effect, the indirect threat of having to pay for a water filtration plant was exactly the incentive needed to collaborate. Moreover, the choice of a multi-party partnership best suited the goals of all protagonists. It offered a viable, effective solution at manageable cost and through largely voluntary action (Croton Watershed Clean Water Coalition, 2009). However, given continued growth in rural areas throughout the region, and continued

In 2004, the city began construction of a \$2 billion underground filtration plan in Van Cortlandt Park, Bronx designed to filter water from the Croton system, which is scheduled

problems with turbidity, it has been necessary to revisit this plan.

(NewYork State Department of Environment and Conservation, 2010b).

Department of Planning, 2009: 2-26).

various environmental groups.

Two fundamental questions are prompted by our discussion of Los Angeles' and New York City's diversion of water from their surrounding regions. The first is: why the absence of overt political conflict in the latter case as compared with the former? The second (as earlier noted) is: what can other megacities learn from these cities'experiences?

Taking the first of these questions – the attenuation of conflict in New York, and its intensity in Los Angeles, it is important to parse the question somewhat. An often assumed difference in the two cases is socio-economic: the Croton and Catskill watersheds are closer to New York City than the Owens Valley is to Los Angeles, and far better integrated into the former's economy. In the present-era, for example, evidence of the strong integration of the Croton Watershed's economy with that of New York City's five boroughs is offered by commuter traffic patterns - some 17,000 Croton Watershed workers commute from New York City daily - nearly 40% of the region's workforce, while some 18,000 workers living in the watershed commute to the city daily (about 35% of the workforce - see Westchester County Department of Planning, 2009: 2-27, 8).

However, this explanation is a bit trickier than might at first appear. New York and Los Angeles share profound socio-economic contrasts with their importing watersheds, which remain highly rural in character. While this is obvious with regards to the Owens Valley - a rural region initially dependent on farming and ranching before Los Angeles diverted its water - it is just as true for the Croton and Catskill watersheds. When initially settled, the upper Croton watershed, for example, was a remote and economically self-reliant region. Its residents developed separate and distinct ways of life initially dependent on dairy and crop farming (Westchester County Department of Planning, 2009: 2-26). Only in the late 19th Century, after completion of the aqueduct system, did the region's economy become more closely integrated with that of New York City.

A better explanation for the seeming absence of inter-regional conflict in the Croton and Catskill watersheds is the fact that New York's efforts to develop the water resources of these basins were, by comparison with those of Los Angeles in the Owens Valley, far more transparent and politically above-board. There is no evidence that the former sought to buy

Cities and Water – Dilemmas of Collaboration in Los Angeles and New York City 335

provision was the norm throughout much of the 19th century. Incorporated in 1799, New York's Manhattan Company was inefficient and scandal-ridden. Yet, until 1834, it conspired with water cart owners to block the New York legislature's creation of a board of water commissioners, which ultimately bought out the company and built the Old Croton

Recall that Los Angeles, in 1902, acquired its private water company in part to amass the finances to build an Owens Valley Aqueduct. Even after acquiring its water company, however, Los Angeles never succeeded in eliminating the sway of private capital over water-supply. As is widely known, a syndicate of land investors sought to enrich themselves through the Los Angeles Aqueduct project by purchasing lands in the San Fernando Valley. Contrary to widespread belief, William Mulholland – the project's principal engineer - did not share this syndicate's avaricious motives. He sought to free the city from dependence upon erratic water sources in order to permit orderly growth. While he only conveyed knowledge of plans to build an Owens Valley Aqueduct to the Board of Water Commissioners and a few local officials, he did so simply to avert a stampede of speculators into the valley that would cause land prices to skyrocket

So, what can other megacities learn from the experiences of New York and Los Angeles in regards to collaboration on regional issues and impacts of water development? The basic answer to this question brings us back to where we started this chapter - the challenge of water stress. As we have seen, Los Angeles and New York historically experienced stress, took various actions to address it which impacted their hinterlands, and continue to reckon with it through efforts to conserve water, improve infrastructure, and plan for climate change. While neither city has "solved" the problem of stress, their efforts to manage it

Since the 1970s, Los Angeles' conservation efforts have principally revolved around metering, conservation pricing, low-flow water appliance mandates, and efforts to compensate low-income groups for the costs of installing the latter. Water use has been considerably reduced - average water demands in period 2004 - 2010 are comparable to those of 1980, even though some 1.1 million additional people now live in Los Angeles (Los

In 1988, New York City began metering to induce conservation and to ensure that larger volume water users pay their fair share. By the 1990s, water use declined some 28 percent as compared to 1979 (Shultz, 2007). Like Los Angeles, New York has also invested nearly \$400 million in a 6.0 liter (1.6-gallon) per-flush toilet rebate program, which reduced water demand and wastewater flow by 342.96 million liters (90.6 million gallons) per day, a sevenpercent reduction. One effect of this rebate program, aside from saving some \$600 million, is delaying by about 20 years the need for water supply and wastewater-treatment expansion

From the standpoint of regional collaboration, these experiences hold important lessons for other megacities in one important respect: conservation efforts lessen impacts on outlying

Aqueduct (Erie, 2006: 174).

(Mulholland, 2002).

(U.S. EPA, 2010).

**5.1 Lessons for other megacities** 

harbor lessons for other megacities.

Angeles Department of Water and Power, 2010a: 8).

up watershed lands in secret, or to secure both surface and groundwater rights exclusively for its own use (and with federal government help). By comparison, the well-documented resistance to Los Angeles' activities in the Owens Valley, evidenced in part by the militancy of opposition, including acts of sabotage against the aqueduct during the 1920s, and tacit complicity in these acts displayed by many valley residents, dramatize the deep resentments generated by Los Angeles' actions. Many Owens Valley residents believed they had become a virtual colony of Los Angeles (Walton, 1992: chapter 5).

Their animosity was strengthened by what they believed was national-level collusion in the city's actions. President Theodore Roosevelt personally interceded in the Owens Valley case, persuaded that the future growth of Los Angeles was more important than the interests of Valley settlers. He not only ordered the eastward extension of the Sierra National Forest to discourage additional homesteading, thus ensuring protection of the aqueduct's right-ofway, but he further stated that the interests of Los Angeles exemplified ". . . the greatest benefit of the greatest number and for the best building up of this section of the country" (Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, 2010b).

Given all this, one must remain cautious about putting too fine a point on these differences. Opposition to New York City's efforts in the Croton Watershed, while infrequently reported, nevertheless existed. As early as 1837, some Westchester County residents lamented the implications of a Croton Aqueduct on their welfare. As one writer stated: "If the rivers of Westchester County are to be taken from it, how is it to rise in arts, manufacturing, and farming" (Quoted in Koeppel, 2001: 8)? Clearly, some residents acknowledged the long-term economic implications of diverting water.

There are two other reasons to avoid drawing too radical a contrast between New York and Los Angeles with regards to inter-basin conflicts. First, both cities have experienced intense *interstate* water conflicts, in both cases entailing Supreme Court litigation. And eventual water apportionment. Conflict between California and Arizona, spurred mostly by Los Angeles' utilization of the Colorado River as a major source of water after 1940, led to the important case of *Arizona v. California* (1964) by which the court reduced the amount of Colorado River water available to California, and further ruled that lower basin states (e.g., Arizona) were entitled to reasonable uses of tributary flows (U.S. Department of the Interior, 2008). Similarly, conflict between New York, Delaware and Pennsylvania led to two U.S. Supreme Court decisions allocating water among protagonists. Initially, the court upheld New York City's right, as an upstream riparian, to use a portion of the Delaware watershed. In a later case, the Court acknowledged the rights of all three states to an equitable apportionment of the Delaware River (Derthick, 1974). Environmental concerns under the Endangered Species Act have likewise prompted federal courts to reduce water deliveries from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta in recent years (Erie, 2006).

A second reason for caution is that both cities have experienced intense political conflict over the respective roles of private, market-driven water development efforts on the one hand and advocates for public control on the other. As noted in section 4, while both cities' preoccupation with water security led them to seek expanded public control of their local water systems to permit construction of massive aqueduct systems, originally, things began quite differently. In their early civic histories, both Los Angeles and New York viewed private water provision as the most desirable way to achieve water security. In fact, private provision was the norm throughout much of the 19th century. Incorporated in 1799, New York's Manhattan Company was inefficient and scandal-ridden. Yet, until 1834, it conspired with water cart owners to block the New York legislature's creation of a board of water commissioners, which ultimately bought out the company and built the Old Croton Aqueduct (Erie, 2006: 174).

Recall that Los Angeles, in 1902, acquired its private water company in part to amass the finances to build an Owens Valley Aqueduct. Even after acquiring its water company, however, Los Angeles never succeeded in eliminating the sway of private capital over water-supply. As is widely known, a syndicate of land investors sought to enrich themselves through the Los Angeles Aqueduct project by purchasing lands in the San Fernando Valley. Contrary to widespread belief, William Mulholland – the project's principal engineer - did not share this syndicate's avaricious motives. He sought to free the city from dependence upon erratic water sources in order to permit orderly growth. While he only conveyed knowledge of plans to build an Owens Valley Aqueduct to the Board of Water Commissioners and a few local officials, he did so simply to avert a stampede of speculators into the valley that would cause land prices to skyrocket (Mulholland, 2002).
