Upstate vs. Downstate: A Slow Boil Over Water Issues As I report in The Times, upstate-downstate tensions have soared over New York City's management of the watershed that supplies drinking water to its residents. Despite a landmark 1997 agreement between the city and local governments to smooth problems over and create "partnerships," people all around the Catskills and up and down the Delaware River are complaining about high reservoir levels that they say worsen flooding during storms. More recently, the muddying of Lower Esopus Creek, a popular waterway in Ulster County, as a result of releases of turbid water from the city's reservoirs has led local officials to compare the city to "an occupying nation." The county executive, Mike Hein, voiced the complaint recently while playing host to more than a dozen global water experts from the State Department's Office of International Visitor Leadership. Next door to Ulster, Delaware County officials spoke out last month over a proposed state ban on new natural gas drilling in and around New York City's watershed. The fracking ban has angered landowners who feel deprived of the potential riches available to those elsewhere in New York who will someday be able to lease their property to gas companies - if and when the Cuomo administration gives the go-ahead to new drilling in the state. Delaware County's board of supervisors passed a resolution demanding "reparations" from the city and the state, arguing that the drilling restrictions have no basis other than protecting the unfiltered status of the city's water. In other words, they say, New York City can avoid building a filtration plant at a cost of billions of dollars "at the expense of the Delaware County residents." "Anyone with a lick of common sense knows that restricting somebody's use of their property without compensation is just not fair," Dean Frazier, commissioner of watershed affairs for the county, said in an interview. Why are folks in New York City so much more special than people outside the watershed? Not everyone upstate is a critic of the city. Dennis Lucas Sr., chairman of the Coalition of Watershed Towns, which represents five counties and 50 municipalities, said that, over all, the city's presence upstate and its investment in infrastructure and roads to protect watershed areas have been "a good thing." "It gives us the means to grow properly in the future," he said. We enjoy being rural communities and we've benefited from New York City's use of the properties they have. But at least one environmental group, Riverkeeper, is siding with upstate residents on the turbidity issue in Lower Esopus Creek in Ulster County. Kate Hudson, watershed program director for the environmental group Riverkeeper, said that communities along the Lower Esopus were not being compensated for their recreational and agricultural losses as a result of the muddy water releases by New York City. She said the city's Department of Environmental Protection is the only agency with the scientists and engineers capable of coming up with alternatives, but "they haven't taken a hard look because no one is forcing them to do it." "It's emblematic of the city's focus on delivering water," Ms. Hudson said.