Tag Archives: Lower Esopus Watershed Partnership

LEWP pressures DEP for clear water releases

The Lower Esopus Creek Watershed Partnership is advocating for DEP to change the way it operates its Ashokan Reservoir in order to improve conditions on the Lower Esopus Creek. Since the Ashokan Dam cuts off the lower Esopus from its headwaters, the health of the creek downstream of the dam depends on how DEP manages the reservoir. To improve the health of the Lower Esopus, LEWP recommends that DEP make minimum daily releases from the Ashokan Reservoir into the lower creek. Read more at the Times Herald-Record. While calling attention to the role LEWP is playing as an advocate for a reservoir release strategy, the article is a little misleading as to the timing of LEWP’s letter, which was sent in July, months before DEP started releasing turbid water from the reservoir. The turbid discharges did not prompt LEWP’s letter, but these unprecedented releases make more urgent the need for a reservoir release plan, which LEWP advocated in the letter.