Five Decades of Water Restoration and Protection
DEC’s Division of Water invites you to celebrate Water Week with us as we highlight some of the milestones in each of the five decades since the first Earth Day in 1970.
Today’s topic: Milestones during 2000 – 2010
Did you know?
- On December 13, 2005, eight state governors and two Canadian premiers signed the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin Water Resources Compact and a cooperative agreement, the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin Sustainable Water Resources Agreement. In each of these documents, the parties agreed to prohibit (with limited exceptions) diversions of water from the Great Lakes Basin and to manage and regulate water withdrawals of 100,000 gallons or more per day within the basin.
- The importance of properly operating and maintaining dams became a focus after the Hadlock Pond Dam, a high hazard dam in the town of Fort Ann, Washington County, failed in 2005. About 520 million gallons of water were released. Flood flows from the dam failure caused extensive damage downstream of the dam, totaling about $10 million in value. Subsequently, in August 2009, after an extensive public input process, DEC adopted a revised set of dam safety regulations that provide flexibility for dam owners, especially owners of small dams, while improving the safeguards necessary to protect communities and infrastructure.
Test your water history
In 2003, DEC implemented the federal Phase II Final Rule by issuing two new general permits to control stormwater runoff. What were the permits? (answer below)
Learn more
On DEC’s website, you can find information about:
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