KINGSTON, N.Y., Jan. 7 (UPI) -- New York City is like an "occupying nation," abusing waterways and poaching resources to get an exurban county's pure drinking water, the county executive says.
The New York City Department of Environmental Protection, which manages the city's water supply, is "operating much like an occupying nation within our county, extracting the natural resource of clean water while simultaneously polluting our waterways and causing massive regional hardships," Ulster County Executive Michael Hein wrote in a letter to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
"I implore you to see firsthand the damage being wrought by NYC DEP's broken policies and out-of-balance bureaucratic influence," Hein wrote.
In addition, annual city tax-assessment challenges deplete small-town budgets, daily 36 million-gallon leaks from an underground aqueduct lower private-property values, and the city's release of up to 600 million gallons a day of muddy water from the Ashokan Reservoir, 93 miles north of New York City, into a Hudson River tributary in Ulster County hurts local farmland, the letter said.
"Simply put, our water is being polluted, our people are being disadvantaged and to add insult to injury, the taxpayers of Ulster County are being forced to subsidize NYC water rates as a result of 'no win' legal proceedings," Hein's letter said. "Rural towns, with limited resources, must choose between driving themselves to the brink of bankruptcy to defend against annual tax litigation or settle, with the result that the NYC DEP pays far less than their fair share of property taxes."
A Bloomberg spokeswoman told the Daily Freeman of Kingston, N.Y., the mayor would not commit to a visit to see the alleged spoilage. She suggested Hein would do better continuing talks with the city's Environmental Protection Department.
Bloomberg was quoted in the New York Daily News as saying he would give the phone number of GOP presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich to Hein since "they both seem to focus on [complaints about] New York City."
Bloomberg spokeswoman Lauren Passalacqua told the Freeman that comment was taken out of context.
In response to the Gingrich quip, Hein said he could give Bloomberg the phone numbers of residents in the small community of Wawarsing who have suffered repeated basement flooding from the city's leaking Delaware Aqueduct, which passes underground through the town.
