0649-B3

Forest management in the New York City watershed

Victor Brunette and René H. Germain 1

Abstract

New York City's (NYC) water supply system - consisting of the Croton,
Catskill and Delaware watersheds - is the largest surface storage and supply
system in the world, providing high-quality drinking water to nearly nine
million consumers. Forests cover 75% of the 2000-square-mile watershed, with an
estimated 75% of the forest area owned by approximately 20000 non-industrial
private forestland (NIPF) owners. Worldwide, large cities and rural communities
are striving to balance economic development and long-term prosperity with
environmental quality and protection. The NYC Watershed is a high profile
example of a working forested landscape seeking to meet this balance.

The paper gives a brief history of water supply for NYC, before looking at
the current challenge - maintaining water quality and sustainable forests. To
bring upstate and NYC interests together and forge a mutually beneficial
solution, the Watershed Agricultural Council (WAC) was established in 1993. The
Council promotes voluntary participation in agriculture Best Management
Practices (BMPs) by landowners and farmers in the Watershed. WAC is a
partnership between watershed farmers and the city created in an effort to
balance pollution prevention, economic viability and public health concerns.

Based on WAC's successful partnerships - and the credibility of an
Agriculture Program already in place since 1993 - the watershed forestry
community organized a grassroots Forestry Task Force. In December 1996, the Task
Force released policy recommendations that eventually served as a blueprint for
the current Watershed Forestry Program (WFP). The WFP is a pollution-prevention
program designed to minimize non-point source pollution related to forestry
activities.

With funding by the NYC Department of Environmental Protection (NYC DEP) and
United States Forest Service (USFS), the WFP is achieving its organizational
goals through the following five programmes: Forest Management Planning on NIPF;
Cost-share and Implementation of Forestry Best Management Practices; Education,
Outreach, and Training for Loggers, Foresters and Landowners; Research and
Demonstration including a Model Forest programme; and Economic Development for
regional wood products businesses. The paper provides a synopsis of each
programme.

The New York City Watershed

A forested working landscape protecting water quality

system in the world, providing high quality drinking water to nearly nine
million metropolitan consumers, or about half the population of New York State.
Forests cover 75% of the 2,000-square-mile Watershed, with an estimated 75% of
the forest area owned by approximately 20,000 nonindustrial private forestland
(NIPF) owners (Watershed Forestry Task Force 1996). Worldwide, large cities and
rural communities are striving to balance economic development and long-term
prosperity with environmental quality and protection. The NYC Watershed is a
high profile example of a working forested landscape seeking to meet this
balance. Throughout most of the 20th Century, forestry and
agricultural activities drove the Watershed economy and NYC residents benefited
from among the purest sources of drinking water in the nation. As the
21st Century begins, changes in land use and development threaten the
quality of NYC's water supply (NYC DEP 2002).

Water for a Growing City: A Brief History

New York City has faced water supply issues - in terms of quality and
quantity - since the Dutch first settled Manhattan Island. In 1667, Battery Park
housed the City's first public well; for the next 150 years, NYC residents
relied primarily on local groundwater from wells, ponds, and springs. As the
population increased, sewage from cesspools, privies, and street drainage
polluted wells and groundwater. Consequently, unsanitary conditions contributed
to five successive yellow fever epidemics between 1795 and 1822 and outbreaks of
cholera in 1832 and 1834. These diseases ultimately killed one-fifth of NYC's
200,000 residents. City officials explored several alternatives before selecting
the Croton River in upstate Westchester County to supply water to New York
(Weidner 1974; Frisbie 1993; Galusha 1999).

With the advent of iron pipes in 1837, New York began constructing its first
successful public water supply system. Within five years, the City completed
this major engineering feat, allowing Croton water to flow through a 60 km
aqueduct into Manhattan. The new system provided 2,800,000 liters daily to a
population of 300,000. Once NYC's population reached 3 million, officials looked
west of the Hudson River to the Esopus River Valley in the Catskill Mountains,
nearly 150 kilometers away.

Engineers completed the Ashokan Reservoir and Catskill aqueduct in 1915. They
finished the remainder of the Catskill system in 1928, including construction of
the Schoharie Reservoir and Shandaken Tunnel. When the rate of NYC water usage
grew to 170 million liters daily in 1931, a landmark Supreme Court decision
permitted NYC to augment its water supply from the headwaters of the Delaware
River. The Delaware system was completed in phases between 1944 and 1967 and
includes the Cannonsville, Pepacton, Neversink and Rondout reservoirs (Weidner
1974; Frisbie 1993; Galusha 1999; New York City Department of Environmental
Protection (NYCDEP) 2002).

As construction of the reservoirs forced the relocation of entire upstate
villages, NYC fostered animosity among the inhabitants of the rural communities
in the Catskills. For example, in creating the Ashokan reservoir (20 km long and
60 miles around), 2,000 local residents and 1,000 second homeowners lost their
dwellings. The projects also displaced stores, churches, cemeteries, gristmills
and sawmills (Weidner 1974; Frisbie 1993). The history of the expansive
watershed is also linked to a declining economy, due to the displacement of the
rural population and the shrinking base of arable land.

The Current Challenge: Maintaining Water Quality and Sustainable
Forests

In 1989, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) promulgated
the Surface Water Treatment Rule pursuant to the Federal Safe Drinking Water Act
Amendments of 1986. This federal mandate required all surface drinking water
sources to meet certain criteria or be filtered. A new filtration plant would
cost an estimated $US 9 billion in 2003, with an annual operating price tag of
$US 350 million or $US 1 million per day. To avoid filtration, NYC released a
draft watershed protection plan in September 1990 that included revised
watershed regulations. The draft regulations sparked considerable opposition
from local watershed communities, especially farmers, forestland owners, and the
local forest industry. Those in opposition asserted that regulations would
jeopardize their continued economic viability (Watershed Forestry Ad Hoc Task
Force 1996). At the time, NYC needed to strike a balance between water quality
protection and quality of life preservation for upstate residents. Reaching such
a balance proved to be an enormous task.

To bring upstate and NYC interests together and forge a mutually beneficial
solution, the Watershed Agricultural Council (WAC) was established in 1993. The
Council promotes voluntary participation in agriculture Best Management
Practices (BMPs) by landowners and farmers in the Watershed. WAC is a
partnership between watershed farmers and the City created in an effort to
balance pollution prevention, economic viability, and public health concerns.

Based on WAC's successful partnerships - and the credibility of an
Agriculture Program already in place since 1993 - the watershed forestry
community organized a grassroots Forestry Task Force. In December 1996, the Task
Force released policy recommendations that eventually served as a blueprint for
the current Watershed Forestry Program. First and foremost - due to the capacity
of forest cover to reduce pollutant loadings, minimize soil erosion, and filter
watershed runoff - forestry was identified as the preferred land use for water
quality protection (Watershed Forest Ad Hoc Task Force 1996).

As the Agricultural and Forestry Programs gained momentum, relationships
among the City, upstate residents, and government agencies solidified. The NYC
Watershed Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) - signed in 1997 by NYC, State and
Federal agencies, watershed communities and environmental groups - identified
three key principles for protecting and maintaining the high quality of New York
City's water supply:

land acquisition and stewardship programs,

watershed protection and partnership programs, andwatershed rules and
regulations.

Promoting Sustainable Forestry in the Watershed

The Watershed Forestry Program (WFP) is a pollution prevention program
designed to minimize non-point source pollution related to forestry activities
by promoting forest management planning and the implementation of BMPs on NIPF
land within the Watershed. Studies have shown that while timber harvesting and
conventional silvicultural activities are not major causes of water quality
problems, forest roads, haul roads, skid trails and log landings have the
potential to be serious sources of soil erosion, transport and sedimentation,
affecting the siltation of adjacent receiving waters (Patric 1976; Swift 1984).
Consequently, the implementation of BMPs is a central theme interwoven
throughout the WFP programs. With funding by the NYC Department of Environmental
Protection (NYC DEP) and United States Forest Service (USFS), the WFP is
achieving its organizational goals through the following five programs: Forest
Management Planning on NIPF; Cost-share and Implementation of Forestry Best
Management Practices; Education, Outreach, and Training for Loggers, Foresters
and Landowners; Research and Demonstration including a Model Forest program; and
Economic Development for regional wood products businesses. The following
provides a synopsis of each program.

1 Forest Management Planning on NIPF:

Any landowner who owns a private property of at least 4 hectares of
forestland within the New York City (NYC) watershed is eligible for
participation in this cost-shared program. Landowners must submit a completed
application that includes a property location map. A Forestry Committee approves
individual acreages and funding amounts based on a priority given to those
parcels located in proximity to NYC reservoirs or representing geographic
diversity within the NYC watershed. The landowner selects a professional
forester who is "Watershed Qualified" to write the forest management plan. All
plans submitted to WAC are required to meet minimum specifications and are
subject to the technical review and approval of the New York State Department of
Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC). When plans are completed, the landowner is
requested to complete an evaluation survey feedback form. During the past five
years, the Watershed Forestry Program has completed 280 forest management plans,
covering nearly 22,000 total hectares in the watershed, with another 80 plans
in-progress, representing 5,000 hectares as of March 2003.

2 Education, Outreach, and Training

Because the implementation of forestry best management practices is a
cornerstone of the Watershed Forestry Program's goal of protecting water quality
through sound forestry, educating many of the individuals involved in
stewardship is paramount. In addition to the Model Forest Program discussed in
the following section, the Forestry Program partners with local extension and
education agencies to provide workshops, hands-on training, and educational
programs for timber harvesters, foresters, landowners, educators, and school
children.

The Watershed Forestry Program promotes good forestry by training timber
harvesters and foresters about practices that prevent non-point source
pollution. Timber harvesters trained under the New York Logger Training Inc
(NYLT) program are recognized through a certification process termed Trained
Logger Certification (TLC). Courses offered include medical first aid, chainsaw
safety, and forest ecology and silviculture. TLC holders are given priority when
applying for grants under the roads, bridges and best practices programs offered
by WFP. Over 150 loggers working in the Watershed have received TLC since the
program began.

To reach the professional and technical foresters working in the region, the
Watershed Forestry Program offers a "Watershed Qualified" curriculum throughout
the year. The curriculum focuses on riparian management planning and includes
classroom and field components. Foresters who complete the coursework gain
"Watershed Qualified" status and are added to the Forestry Program's list that
is distributed to landowners interested in developing a management plan.

3 Cost-share and Implementation of Forestry Best Management Practices
(BMPs)

Numerous programs offered by WAC/WFP focus on forest operations and
activities (either for economic or recreation purposes). Funding agencies
(NYCDEP and USFS) encourage good forest stewardship and the protection of soil
and water resources. All partners recognize the need for proper access to forest
lands for optimal forest management and encourage BMPs when forest roads and
bridges have to be built. For example, loggers and landowners are invited to
adopt one BMP portfolio which addresses issues of forest road construction and
stream crossings. This program assists TLC timber harvesters working within the
New York City Watershed with the loan and/or purchase of temporary haul and
skidder bridges. As a result of this cost-shared program, loggers modify their
stream crossing techniques through an increased use of temporary skidder and
haul bridges to reduce sedimentation of water courses in the NYC Watersheds.

4 Research and Demonstration including the Model Forest Program

Initiated in 1997, the four Model Forests are the primary research and
demonstration components of the Watershed Forestry Program. Given that the
majority of Watershed forests are owned by private individuals facing many
issues, the Watershed Forestry Program supports regional forestry research to
ensure a better understanding of how water quality is affected by fragmentation,
parcelization, silviculture practices, BMPs in road construction, stream
crossings, wildlife management, population controls, and linkages among forest
management, economic development, and sustainable forest stewardship. The
program's underlying philosophy is that sound forest management has to be based
on proper scientific knowledge and monitoring.

Each Model Forest is delineated into a series of experimental treatment
blocks ranging in size from two to 20 hectares. When fully installed, each
treatment block will be used to assess and demonstrate various silvicultural
prescriptions and thinning regimes (i.e., shelterwood, clearcut, seed tree,
patchcut, timber stand improvement) used for sustainable forest management. In
this capacity, the Model Forests serve as research and demonstration sites for
documenting and interpreting pre- and post-harvest conditions for timber
production, wildlife habitat, recreation, aesthetics and other values while
assessing the degree of natural regeneration in comparison to control areas
without manipulations.

In order to demonstrate forest management techniques that are compatible with
watershed protection, the Model Forests emphasize the use of practical and
effective BMPs, including traditional and innovative technologies (i.e., water
bars, broad-based dips, portable bridges, geotextile fabric, open-topped
culverts, etc.). The access system for each Model Forest will address
combinations of three major parameters that define the sensitivity of a given
site to forest management and determine BMP effectiveness: soil type, slope, and
the size and location of the site within the Watershed.

The Model Forest sites are utilized in conjunction with other WFP activities
for landowner, logger, and professional forester training and accreditation. The
Model Forests are preferred demonstration sites for education and information on
forest sustainability, working forests, biodiversity, and water resource
protection in the watershed. Guided tours are offered to the general public and
specific groups (environmental and non-governmental organizations, major
newspapers editorial board visits, bus tours for visitors, school groups,
reporters and political decision makers).

The development of the NYC Watershed Model Forests is progressing in a
deliberate manner given the multiple objectives of research, demonstration,
public outreach, and continuing education. Of particular significance is the
role of the Model Forests regarding the future management of the surrounding
working landscape. As a long-term institutional resource, each Model Forest will
provide unprecedented opportunities for private landowners, forest industry,
environmental groups, and other audiences to better understand the multiple
values associated with their local natural resources. As these audiences become
well-informed stewards of the Watershed forests, they will hopefully recognize
and act upon their potential contributions to a thriving working landscape and
help to improve the quality of their natural environment.

5 Economic Development for Regional Wood Products Businesses

As part of the USDA Forest Service's "Rural Development Through Forestry"
Economic Action Initiative, the Watershed Forestry Program manages a grants
program targeting wood-based industries in the Catskill/Delaware and Croton
Watersheds. The grants program uses federal funding to leverage local dollars
for the enhancement of the value-added wood industry within the watersheds.
Since March 2001, the Forest Service has granted several million US dollars;
each dollar granted has been fully matched by regional companies and government
agencies. This multi-million dollar partnership has impacted 40 businesses and
directly affected 500 jobs.

The Economic Action Initiative makes grants to companies seeking plant
expansion, scientific or technical assistance, employment growth, and marketing
consulting. A governing body of university professors, economists, and federal,
state, and City land managers review and award grants on a competitive basis.
The WFP's goal is improve the secondary wood products industry to keep the cycle
of growth, harvest, milling, and utilization functioning and profitable on the
local level. Currently in its third full year of operation, the Watershed
Forestry Grants Initiative serves a national model for simultaneously growing
rural economies while protecting water quality.

Programs lead to behavior change

An on-going assessment of the progress and efficiency of the Watershed
Forestry extension programs suggests good things are happening on this working
landscape. Formative research results indicate that approximately 20% of the
estimated 20,000 Watershed NIPF owners have forest management plans. This is
four times the national average, suggesting that the Watershed Forestry
Program's initiative to subsidize and facilitate forest management planning
within the Watershed is making positive inroads.

A recent survey indicates that Watershed NIPF owners are more aware and
knowledgeable about BMPs than NIPF owners in other parts of the State. The
survey results suggest that the landowner extension programs are successfully
transferring knowledge about the relationship between forest management
activities and water quality. A field assessment of BMP implementation on NIPF
owners who harvested during the last three years indicates that BMP
implementation is good, but there is room for improvement (Munsell and Germain
2002). Like any incentives with landowners, forestry-related programs need to be
implemented in sequential steps in order for a change of attitude and behavior
to be measured. Especially in the case of conservative landowner and logger
populations, outreach and extension activities must be offered in a consecutive
fashion, followed by forest management planning incentives, demonstration/pilot
projects and implementation (timber stand improvement ) incentives. The behavior
change of landowners is expressed through increased activity on their forests.
When benchmarks are established at the planning phase, behavior change can be
measured quantitatively and qualitatively in later stages when
implementation/operations incentives are offered. Finally, when the extension
knowledge and good forest practices are implemented by local leaders and widely
accepted by a majority of landowners and loggers, fine tuning the core programs
will bring the latent participants on board.

Losing Our Working Forests to Parcelization and Fragmentation

On the surface, the Watershed's working landscape appears to be stable, even
thriving. In fact, a short plane ride over the Watershed offers views of large
forested tracts, sometimes stretching for miles and miles. However, there is a
serious threat, often unnoticed, lurking under the forest canopy - forest
parcelization. Today, throughout the eastern half of the United States, the
challenge is increasingly one of keeping forests growing, and preventing their
conversion to other uses or to such small and fragmented parcels that
sustainable management is no longer feasible (Macie and Ring 2000). The
challenges facing resource managers in the NYC Watershed continue to multiply,
particularly as the number of NIPF owners increase. Forestry requires relatively
large tracts of open space to remain economically viable. In order to combat the
current trend of rural land conversions to residential, commercial and
industrial development, it is critical to maintain an economically healthy
working landscape.

Parcelization is a complex phenomenon resulting from dynamic interactions
between the natural landscape and society's increasing demands on the land.
Unlike fragmentation, which causes a disruption in continuity of the natural
landscape, parcelization describes changes in ownership patterns when larger
forested tracts are divided into smaller parcels owned by several owners with
varying management objectives. Parcelization directly affects the potential for
forest and watershed management by reducing the size of the management unit,
resulting in diseconomies of scale, thereby lessening the likelihood of
sustainable forest management. Parcelization is a significant driver of
fragmentation (Thorne and Sundquist 2001; DeCoster and Sampson 2000;
Leatherberry 1998; Zipperer and Birch 1993).

A recent study of the eastern half of the Catskill/Delaware Watershed
established that the average parcel size for these lands is declining,
potentially threatening the opportunity to maintain well-managed forests. We
speculate that development pressures from the greater NYC region are
contributing to this increase in parcelization. Specifically, from 1984 to 2000
NIPF parcels representing those portions of four counties within the Watershed
decreased in size from 7 to 6 hectares (LaPierre and Germain 2002). This trend
of subdividing large, singly-owned land parcels into smaller pieces owned by
diverse owners with different land-use objectives reduces the effectiveness of
coordinated management strategies dealing with soil and water conservation,
wildlife habitat, timber production, recreation opportunities and aesthetics
(Sampson 2000; Drzyaga and Brown 1998; USDA Forest Service 1995; Dennis 1992).

Addressing the challenge of increasing NIPF owners with multiple management
objectives is an important issue, particularly to the WFP striving to promote
sustainable forestry to an increasing number of NIPF owners. However, a more
serious concern to water quality is the potential for land-use objectives to
shift to non-forest uses such as rural residential dwellings. Nationwide, 80
percent of the new housing construction is taking place beyond the urban fringe
on the rural landscape, with 57 percent on lots greater than 4 hectares
(Heimlich and Anderson 2001). In cases when parcelization and development occur
simultaneously, managers are faced with the added challenges of nutrient loading
from septic systems, lawn fertilizers, animal wastes, and road salts, with
transport accelerated through an increase in the amount of impermeable surfaces
(Heisig 2000).

Curbing Parcelization with Conservation Easements

The Watershed Agricultural Council is currently involved with a land easement
program for sensitive sites on farms participating in the Watershed Agricultural
Program. We want to expand this easement program to forested land in the
watershed in order to attain some of the environmental, social, and economical
goals of the watershed partners, and achieve forest and water-related
objectives. Local leaders and decision makers have realized that over the years,
the Catskill/Delaware economy has suffered from abandoned farmland, mismanaged
forests, sawmill closures, abandoned railroad systems, and the removal of 45,000
hectares from active economic forest and agricultural production (area acquired
by the City and not harvested since). The shrinking industrial wood basket has
lead to economic sustainability issues, in particular to maintaining the annual
allowable cut (AAC) at the landscape level. For these reasons, a well-structured
forest easement program accompanied by land use conditions, operations oversight
and monitoring would protect "present use" and would be a preferred solution
over fee simple private land acquisitions by governments and NGOs strictly for
preservation purposes. There is a critical need for a vastly expanded forest
easement program in the New York City watersheds. The Catskill/Delaware
watershed has more than 250,000 hectares of privately owned land. The threat is
that much of this land is or could be developed. (Goldstein and Marx 2003).

For the substantial portions of watershed lands that will not be purchased in
fee simple, a WAC-administered forest easement program of considerable size is
the best option for conserving this rural watershed. The City of New York and
the upstate forest representatives recognize their strong mutual interest in
expanding a Watershed Forestry Program and a Forest Easement Program in an
environment where working landscapes and water quality protection are
inextricably linked.

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1 Director, Forestry Program, Watershed Agricultural
Council, 33195 NYS Highway 10, Walton, New York 13856-9751, USA. [email-masked]