Federally Funded Study to Lay Out 1st Blueprint for Neversink Watershed Protection

Neversink River in the hamlet of Cuddebackville, N.Y., on Aug. 4, 2024. (Cara Ding/The Epoch Times)

A soon-to-be-released federally funded study will serve as a guide for growth management and natural resource conservation in New York’s Neversink watershed for decades to come, according to Jeff Skelding, executive director of Friends of the Upper Delaware River.

The largely rural watershed has seen an increasing demand for housing and commercial developments in recent years, especially during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.

Neversink River travels through Ulster and Sullivan counties and the town of Deerpark before flowing into the Delaware River near the border of the city of Port Jervis.

The river has long been known as a popular destination for trout fishing.

“This is the first attempt to get a comprehensive, holistic watershed management plan for the entire Neversink watershed,” Skelding told The Epoch Times. “Unlike other places in the country, where you are trying to repair dirty rivers, Neversink is relatively clean, and it is a lot easier to protect a clean stream than clean up a dirty one.”

Skelding’s organization was hired by Sullivan County about two years ago to develop the plan with technical assistance from Trout Unlimited and Natural Lands.

The study’s funding comes from the Delaware River Basin Restoration Program, which is administered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.

“This plan not only looks at the river, the fish, the ecosystem, but also the land, the community, and the people,” Skelding said. “It does not discourage growth that is done in smart and well-planned ways where communities make intentional decisions about how they want to grow.”

Orange County Federation of Sportsmen's Clubs volunteer Bud Flotard empties a bucket of trout into Basha Kill, a major Neversink River tributary in Cuddebackville, N.Y., during trout fishing season on May 23, 2023. (Cara Ding/The Epoch Times)

During multiple stakeholder planning and public feedback sessions, the growing number of developments and potential effects on water quality, natural habitats, and climate resiliency in the watershed emerged as one of the most notable themes, according to Skelding.

He recommended that local governments update their land use regulations with watershed protection in mind, one tool being environmental overlay zoning districts.

Open space programs aimed at preserving significant watershed parcels will also help, according to Skelding. For instance, Orange County recently reactivated its open space fund and is considering working with the local land trust to preserve watershed land in Deerpark.

Public Education, Community Spirit

Skelding said that as important as governmental actions are, they are not the whole solution to watershed protection and that well-informed citizens should take the lead in the long run.

“The most important tool, and probably the hardest one, is public education,” he said. “A lot of people, when it comes to the water, they maybe take it for granted—‘We are going to turn the tap on, and the water is going to come through, and that is all we really need to know.’

“They should, first and foremost, know where their water comes from. Does it come from a private well underneath their houses? Does it come from a community well field? Does it come from a surface water reservoir that runs pipes to everybody’s house?

“Then, it’s best to know the tools that are available to protect their water supply over a long period of time while also allowing their community to grow in a sensible way.”

Watershed-wide protection plans usually take a collaborative and voluntary approach, as opposed to the regulatory approach taken by environmental government units at the state and federal levels, according to Skelding.

“We have got to rely on community spirit, people working together on a voluntary basis and thinking about not just their own backyard but the whole watershed community to make sure that they are going to have clean water for a long time,” he said.

The final Neversink Watershed Management Plan will be released in the fall.

“Our obligation was to spearhead the development of the plan, but I believe that our obligation doesn’t stop there,” Skelding said, noting that a new volunteer group is planning to put energy behind the study to drive public education and fundamental changes on the ground.