Catskill Watershed Corporation (CWC) Community Vitality Study Project Announcement

Supplying more than 1 billion gallons of drinking water daily to almost 9 million people in New York City is the difficult task undertaken by the NYC Department of Environmental Protection (NYCDEP). NYC’s high quality of water could not exist without the immense scale and complexity of its infrastructure, underpinned by an impressive political and social contract between urban NYC residents and rural upstate residents.

This agreement, between NYC, the 50 watershed communities living around the bodies of water that source NYC’s drinking water, New York State, and other key stakeholders, seeks to balance protection of water quality and “community vitality” of the rural watershed communities. CGR has recently been engaged to examine community vitality in the communities and provide guidance on potential recommendations/improvements for protecting water quality and community vitality.

Community vitality consists of many factors such as economic health, social/physical health, environmental health, and other factors contributing to how a community is doing.

CGR and our partners LaBella and UrbanSense have been engaged by the Catskill Watershed Corporation (CWC), the independent and locally administered not-for-profit corporation responsible for creating programs and administering funds from the NYCDEP targeted at water quality protection as well as community and economic development.

CGR Principal Paul Bishop, M.P.A. and Senior Associate Wiley Little serve as project director and manager, respectively, for this collaborative team. Please contact Wiley for more information.

April 15, 2025 CGR Briefs Edition