BIRDS ARE UNHAPPY: New York City agrees to build expensive cover over Yonkers reservoir and to kill birds in the area.
DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE: New York City will build a cover over the reservoir that supplies its drinking water and pay a fine as part of a consent decree with the federal government
YONKERS: The Hillview Reservoir is a massive, open-air structure that gets almost a billion gallons of water via aqueducts daily, and is the last stop before water enters the three city water tunnels.
TRUMP ADMINISTRATION: Federal regulations call for open-air reservoirs like Hillview to be covered to protect the water from viruses that can come from animals like birds or their waste.
New York City in previous years tried to get a waiver, or the deadline delayed
In the 1990s, EPA issued a national one-size-fits-all rule that requires a cover on even an extraordinarily well protected asset like Hillview Reservoir and now New York City residents will spend $1.6 billion to build a redundant cover.
The feds filed a lawsuit in 2017 saying the city was violating the Safe Water Drinking Act at the reservoir, which is the last stop for drinking water before it is distributed to New York City taps.
Sen. Charles Schumer, who was a vocal opponent of the concrete cover plan has previously said it wasn’t cost-effective and lacked common sense.
Andrew Wheeler, the former coal lobbyist who heads the President Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency has repeatedly hailed the agreement in press reports.
The cover project is estimated at $1.6 billion, and other connected projects raise the total estimate to almost $3 billion.
The entire project is scheduled to be completed and running by 2049
The measures would include elimination of Cliff Swallow nests and live capturing or lethal removal of duck and other waterfowl, as well as other actions concerning the waterfowl in the area, such as a bird census.
The agreement indicates that such efforts have been underway since 2010, and says bird culling will be enhanced, but it does not explain how that will be done.