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AGENCY TESTIMONY
DEP's perspective on Intro 900: Installation of drinking fountains
0:46:36
·
57 sec
The commissioner presents DEP's perspective on Intro 900, which would require the installation of 500 new drinking fountains. He outlines the agency's concerns about the feasibility and costs of the proposal.
- DEP supports efforts to encourage tap water consumption but believes the proposal is not feasible
- Installing 500 fountains would cost about $20 million
- DEP currently does not maintain any water fountains and would need to hire a new dedicated team
- The agency lacks sufficient and appropriate staff for this task
- There are concerns about whether this would be a legitimate use of water rate funding
Rohit T Aggarwala
0:46:36
While we support any effort that encourages more people to drink our tap water, we unfortunately do not believe that the proposal is feasible.
0:46:44
Installing 500 fountains would cost about $20,000,000.
0:46:48
DEP does not currently maintain any water fountains, so maintaining these new fountains were to require hiring a new dedicated team of staff.
0:46:57
We do not currently have sufficient staff or even the appropriate staff to do so.
0:47:01
It is not clear that this would be a legitimate use of water rate funding, so we would need appropriations from general tax levy funding.
0:47:08
We are happy to work with you to develop programs to ensure access drinking water around the city, but we strongly believe that this proposal as written is not the best way to achieve that goal.
0:47:19
Finally, intro 1067 would require DEP to hire community based organizations identified properties that have been damaged by groundwater flooding, connect those property owners to assistance programs, and provide case management support to property owners.