FYI.

DRBC DECEPTION
NYC reservoirs flooding

Under the cover of the Flood Mitigation Task Force's February series of circus stops, almost no one seems to have heard the faint opening gun in the race to May 10th, the date that the DRBC plans to permanently adopt Resolution 18, "artfully " disguised and re-named the "new" Flexible Flow Management Program. Anyone who has been paying attention knows that Resolution 18/The Flexible Flow Management Program doesn't work. Those who attended the Sept. 19th meeting of the DRBC's Regulated Flow Advisory Committee in Hale Eddy will remember it as the plan that calls for no safety voids in the reservoirs during most of the year. It also calls for an additional 10% capacity to be added to each reservoir, necessary to feed the NYCDEP's insatiable appetite for additional water to sell, and to facilitate their planned expansion of the size of the Delaware River Basin flood plain.
The opening gun in the race to May 10th was fired the day after the first of the Flood Mitigation Task Force meetings in Delhi, N.Y, when the Flexible Flow Management Program was quietly listed as a "discussion" item on the DRBC's agenda for their meeting on February 28 in Trenton, NJ. At this point in its re-birth, the program may have added three amendments, approved at the February 28th DRBC meeting.
Most will remember that these three amendments have been acknowledged by DRBC professionals as ineffective, two of them providing a minuscule increase and one an offsetting decrease in the quantities of release water from the reservoirs, the result, by design again, producing no safety voids.
The Flexible Flow Management Program, the brainchild of the Regulated Flow Advisory Committee (the true policy making committee of the many "water" and "flood" committees in the DRBC), will first appear on that committee's program "for discussion," at their regular meeting in Trenton on March 6th. If they have been sufficiently crafty and there is little protest, they will have to do nothing more rigorous at their March 6th meeting than discuss the design their press releases for the program's official presentation, with all appropriate hoopla, at a public meeting in Hawley, Pa. on March 27th, where it will be presented by one of the "decree parties," a representative of New York State or New Jersey as an amended, tested and sophisticated design for the future management of the water supply of the City of New York. It will still not
(again, by deliberate design) contain any mechanism(s) for the actual creation of safety voids in the reservoirs on the Upper Delaware river.
Without a significant ground swell of opposition to this program, it stands a good chance of being adopted by the DRBC on May 10th, when it will be on the meeting agenda "for decision." To the designers of this torturously nuanced program, full of complicated stepped criteria and poison pills to ensure that no safety voids are ever actually created, it is as if the last three floods and near floods caused by the reservoirs being too full never happened. Unless they are stopped, the DRBC will continue to ignore the lessons that should have been learned from those experiences and superimpose their own new objectives. These objectives can be found in the careful language of the recommendations of the Flood Mitigation Task Force. You will see that they largely boil down to a collective finding that, 'in the course of their flood plain expansion program, they have little if any responsibility for the consequences of their actions, but you, if you live in the flood plain(s) have the obligation to get out of the way.' This is why 95% of the Flood Mitigation Task Force's recommendations involve flood "warning," flood plain "management," and flood "mitigation." There is nothing about flood control or flood prevention. That is no accident. I hope that those who have already wasted their time at the Flood Mitigation Task Force meetings have realized that and will focus now on the emergency creation of safety voids through political pressure.
Those living in the areas below the dams need to pay attention, now. As I write this, Feb. 28th is eleven days away. This is not a movie or a television drama or a play. Anyone who is just waiting to see how it all turns out, tuning in and out as the mood suits them, is a fool. Everyone is in this. No one is just an extra, everyone is a principal actor. The lives, property and futures of all flood plain communities are at stake. What is done now by each individual will determine how it all turns out. It will always matter more what you do than what you know, so everyone needs to stop watching what everyone else is doing or saying and do something constructive themselves. Encouraged by a lack of organized resistance, the NYCDEP and the DRBC will continue with their plan to expand the flood plain. Their plan to increase the capacities of all the reservoirs should at least clue people in to that objective.
The arrival of the next flood in it's prettiest form this last Wednesday should have everyone thinking about the impending arrival of the next flood every time they go outside. I contacted a community leader about our need for help to get the word out about how extreme the situation is and the need for assistance in getting everyone to pull together to save the community from the next flood. I pointed out that with the reservoirs at close to 100%, there is a definite possibility of a flood as early as the next thaw, especially if it is accompanied by any rain at all. I stressed the need to devote all our energies to getting people energized to this task, if for no other reason, self preservation. In response I was asked to clarify if "lowering the reservoir levels" was an accurate objective of "our group," as one of several community groups that were interested river related activities," such as waterfront re-design, river access,etc.
It almost makes one want to scream "what part of THIS IS AN EMERGENCY - THERE IS NOT GOING TO BE A COMMUNITY IF THIS HAPPENS AGAIN is so hard to understand?" At what point in the evolution of our national psyche did self-preservation stop being as important as the pursuit of amenities? Have we become that flaccid? Is it just the bureaucrats who are college trained to avoid hard decisions, or is everyone just waiting for someone else to rescue them so they can just get on with their lives?
Unfortunately, there are many people who live within the boundaries of riverside communities who feel that this is not really about them because they live on higher ground. I can only tell them, in the strongest possible terms, that if one half of your community disappears again under a flood, there are anchor stores which were flooded in June which will not be able to afford to re-open. This is probably true of other communities along the river.
No one in the flood plain(s) can afford to wait to see if they are flooded yet again before they choose to act. I say directly to anyone reading this that choosing to sit back and wait, hoping the tiger will eat you last, never works. And I and most others who write about this are not doing it so that readers can be "entertained" by a letter to the editor. If it was for entertainment, it would be in short, simplistic, funny sound bites. It is about getting off your.... It is time for action. Make a real contribution. Do something personally extraordinary. Make a call you would have never considered making before. Write, even if you think you can't, in any form you can manage. Politicos don't want 'smooth,' they want to hear from real people." The clock is ticking, and the race is on.

Elected representatives need to be persuaded to put pressure on the DRBC, starting before the February 28th meeting. They'll do it if they are asked, if they get enough pressure from us. New York State Senator Bonacic and Assemblyman Crouch are fighting the good fight in the state legislature and have been doing so for several years, but they need help. Senator Clinton and Congressman Hinchey are the ones who need to be brought into this fight, to understand that they have constituents who need their help now. And, now is the time to contact the DRBC, by mail, phone, or e-mail and tell them what you think. Tell them that, at an absolute minimum, there must be safety voids in all the reservoirs all year round, until a program negotiated by all affected parties can be designed and agreed to by all parties - to include for the first time, the communities along the Delaware River within the natural, and within the NYCDEP/DRBC's recently expanded, flood plains. Even if the NYCDEP cannot bring themselves to look in the mirror and acknowledge responsibility for all the havoc their "we don't do flood control" mantra has caused, the DRBC must be made to pause and re-consider their planned endorsement of the status quo.

Sincerely,
Peder Hansen
Deposit, N.Y.

Submitted by,
Michelle L. Kintner
Minisink Hills, Pa.