Water Supply Vulnerable, Official Says
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Surveillance of the city’s water supply has been profoundly upgraded in the last three years, but is still glaringly vulnerable, a City Council committee was told yesterday.
Just 200 officers patrol the city’s 1,972-square-mile watershed, which supplies 1.4 billion gallons of water to the city and parts of Westchester County.
The labyrinth of water treatment plants and reservoirs is also plagued by cellular “dead zones” that hinder communication.
DEP Commissioner Christopher Ward, who testified at the hearing yesterday, said his agency has invested $115 million in capital security enhancements, including the addition of five precincts, two emergency centers, and video surveillance at 74 critical sites.
The agency also conducts aerial inspections and is in the process of adding surveillance cameras, motion detectors, and other equipment designed to promptly detect chemicals or toxins that could be used to taint the city’s water.
Mr. Ward acknowledged that while the DEP has significantly beefed up operations and more than doubled its staff since the September 11 attacks, the starting salary for an officer, $25,000 a year, makes it difficult to retain employees.
He also agreed with council members who said more state and federal money was essential to shore up security holes.
“New York City has been shortchanged on Homeland Security dollars,” Mr. Ward said in an exchange with Council Member Peter Vallone Jr., chairman of the committee on public safety, which held the hearing jointly with the committee on environmental protection.
Mr. Ward said the DEP has to “stand in the queue” behind the NYPD, which is widely regarded as the city’s first line of security defense.
Council members will likely use the findings of the hearing, and any that follow, to bolster their argument for more federal homeland security dollars.
Mr. Ward did not say if the city had a back-up plan in the event of an attack on the Catskill Water Supply System, which, along with the Delaware Water Supply System, provides 90% of the city’s water.
An Army Corps of Engineers study concluded that contaminating the city’s water supply would be a tall task. There is more concern about an attack on the tunnels that carry water into the city and the treatments plants that filter the water.
A former DEP officer, Michael Byrnes, said the agency suffers from a lack of surveillance cameras, antiquated communication, and officers who do not know the intricacies of the vast patrol site.