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Overtasked D.E.C.

As many as 186 animal species could be imperiled in the state within 10 years
By
Editorial

Attention in Albany may be focused on the apparent downfall of the Legislature’s top Democrat, Sheldon Silver, in a corruption scandal that cuts very close to Gov. Andrew Cuomo, but the critically important work of settling a budget for the coming fiscal year goes on. Two recent reports from the New York Department of Environmental Conservation have raised valid questions about the agency’s capabilities where wildlife is concerned and painted a picture of it as a failed agency.

The most disturbing report came at the end of the year and said that without aggressive action as many as 186 animal species could be imperiled in the state within 10 years. The other described the state’s ocean and estuary waters as in a state of crisis and said greater efforts were necessary to head off human impact, habitat degradation, and climate change. Sadly, Mr. Cuomo’s budget offers little in the way of good news in these regards. The D.E.C. simply needs a lot more money right away and perhaps a top-to-bottom redesign for the long haul. Here’s why.

The D.E.C. manages a huge range of properties, including about 4.5 million acres of land, more than 300 boat launching and fishing sites, 102 flood-control structures, 52 campgrounds, 12 fish hatcheries, 4 camps, 2 environmental education centers, and 1 tree nursery. That’s just the hardware.

On the program side, the agency oversees coastal projects, pollution control, hunting, fishing, mining, oil extraction, air quality, and even runs what amounts to its own armed police force. In Mr. Cuomo’s budget for the coming fiscal year, funding for the D.E.C. is increased by an insignificant 1.2 percent to $898 million. The spending plan’s priorities, too, seem out of touch, with the focus on industrial site cleanups, oil spill preparedness, farmland preservation in the Southern Tier and Hudson Valley, parks infrastructure, and public access. Needed or not, the budget also includes $50 million for improvements at the state fairgrounds outside Syracuse. Remember, this is at a time when the agency’s staffing levels are down about 10 percent from their peak and funding off by nearly a quarter from that of pre-Great Recession days.

For those concerned with wildlife, visiting migratory species, and marine ecosystems, there is little to be happy about in the near-term D.E.C. budget. Looking further out, things do not get much better. Capital spending increases slightly for 2016, then begins to fall off in subsequent years. The Environmental Protection Fund, which is supposed to help pay for critical habitat preservation and other programs, will see a modest increase of $10 million, which is far from enough.

That the D.E.C. is overtasked is clear, and the vast span of its responsibilities can lead to some peculiar conflicts. For example, it is both the lead agency for the Army Corps’s downtown Montauk erosion-control project and the regulator of the sand mines from which the raw material for the project will be dug. It was little surprise that the D.E.C. declared that the Montauk plan could go ahead without formal environmental review.

Breaking up the D.E.C. into several parts might be the best hope for the New York environment. In one scenario, one might think of one division as a regulatory agency concerned with pollution, extractive industries, and human health. Another might be responsible for activities such as hunting and fishing. And a third, and perhaps most important, would concentrate on the state’s wildlife and wild places.

As the two troubling reports indicate, the D.E.C. that New York has now is just not working.

 

 

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