ARKVILLE — On Nov. 25, members of the New York City Department of Environmental Protection and Delaware County leaders gathered in the western Catskills after four years of negotiations to sign a landmark agreement laying out how the city purchased land in the Catskills.
Since 1997, the DEP has purchased more than 220 square miles of land in the Catskills under a plan with the state that allowed the city to continue drawing water from its reservoirs in the region without installing a filtration system, which would cost billions of dollars. The agreement requires the city to purchase land in the watershed to buffer the reservoirs from runoff, which could introduce pollutants into a system that supplies water to 90% of New York City and approximately 1 million people in the Hudson Valley.
Catskills town leaders often chafed under the agreement, saying it limited economic growth and usurped local political control. But after years of negotiations for a new agreement, Delaware County got most of what it wanted, including the ending of the city’s major land-buying program in most of the Catskills. County leaders ratified the new agreement in November, and the Coalition of Watershed Towns, composed of local town leaders, signed it on Dec. 15…