0ur family just received another slickly written, glossy mailing from United Water Co. (UW) telling how OK it will be to drink water that comes from the Hudson River. Facing huge opposition from the public, UW seems to be making a desperate, all-out push to persuade the public that UW's "Haverstraw Water Project" would be good for Rockland County. In the last several months our mailbox has been cluttered with at least five such mailings, plus almost non-stop newspaper ads. Who is paying for all of this? It's probably all of us, from our recently jacked-up water bills. And for what?
 

With water conservation and protection of our abundant ground water resources, Rockland does not have a water shortage. This is in spite of UW's large, illegal diversions of our water that earlier went to their New Jersey market, for which UW was fined $10,000. UW has planned for large increases in Rockland's population, which would certainly increase UW profits. However, that growth just isn't happening, except perhaps in the town of Ramapo. Does all of Rockland want to grow as Ramapo is growing?

The proposed process to clean up and de-salt Hudson water would use very large amounts of expensive electric power, with corresponding increases in our water rates. There is also an environmental price from screens that would kill large numbers of the eggs, larvae and other small life that restock the river and the ocean. Moreover, the process cannot remove the radioactive tritium that continues to leak into the Hudson from the Indian Point nuclear reactors even without a nuclear accident or terrorist attack.

There will be continued popular opposition to getting our tap water from the Hudson. Also, the NY Dept. of Environmental Conservation will probably deny the necessary permit. So perhaps UW will give less thought to its Suez Co. stockholders and Board of Directors in Paris and more thought to its existing customers and to a sustainable future for Rockland County.

Chad Murdock, Ph.D.
Pearl River

Visit the Rockland Water Coalition website at http://sustainablerockland.org/