The Department of Environmental Protection has the critical mission to enrich the
environment and protect public health for all New Yorkers by providing high quality
drinking water, managing wastewater and stormwater, and reducing air, noise,
and hazardous materials pollution. In July, 2015 DEP announced a new series of
programs to provide additional assistance to its most vulnerable customers. The City
froze the minimum charge, preventing any increase in water and sewer charges for
many single-family homeowners and undertook a major expansion of the Home
Water Assistance Program (HWAP), a billing program that provides a credit to lowincome homeowners who qualify for the federal Home Energy Assistance Program.
In 2016, the Department undertook a further expansion of the HWAP credit to
include additional low-income senior and disabled homeowners who receive a New
York City Department of Finance property tax exemption. Then, in Fiscal 2018, DEP
implemented the Multifamily Water Assistance Program (MWAP), which provides a
bill credit to multifamily buildings that conserve water and enter into an agreement
to keep rents affordable. In Fiscal Year 2020, DEP continued both the freeze of
the minimum charge and the income-tested HWAP credit. In addition, the system
has for many years offered a bill amnesty program, in which high water charges
that are attributable to leaks that are fixed receive a partial reduction in charges.
The Department’s two major bill credit programs together provide assistance to
almost 90,000 households each year, covering approximately 237,000 New Yorkers,
including both renters and owner-occupants.
OUR SERVICES AND GOALS
SERVICE 1 Ensure the sufficiency, quality and security of the City’s
drinking water supply.
Goal 1a Comply with all federal and State drinking water quality standards.
Goal 1b Assure the integrity of the drinking water supply and distribution
systems.
SERVICE 2 Maintain the City’s water delivery and sewer collection
systems.
Goal 2a Resolve emergencies and perform preventive maintenance and
required repairs to the water distribution and wastewater collection
systems in a timely manner.
SERVICE 3 Treat wastewater and sewage to protect water quality in
the receiving waters surrounding the City.
Goal 3a Maintain high levels of compliance with federal and State treatment
standards for wastewater and sewage entering receiving waters.
SERVICE 4 Bill and collect revenue for water and sewer usage.
Goal 4a Ensure that customer billing is accurate, transparent and fair.
Goal 4b Meet revenue targets established by the NYC Water Board.
SERVICE 5 Enforce City laws relating to air pollution, noise pollution
and hazardous materials.
Goal 5a Investigate complaints in a timely manner.
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HOW WE PERFORMED IN FISCAL 2020
SERVICE 1 Ensure the sufficiency, quality and security of the City’s drinking water supply.
Goal 1a Comply with all federal and State drinking water quality standards.
By regularly collecting water samples at nearly 1,000 water quality sampling stations throughout the City and conducting
analyses for a broad spectrum of microbiological, chemical and physical measures of quality, the Department ensures that
all federal and State standards for drinking water, including those for coliform bacteria, are consistently met. In Fiscal 2020,
DEP collected 36,300 samples from the City’s distribution system and performed approximately 456,500 analyses, meeting
all state and federal monitoring requirements. Additionally, approximately 262,500 analyses were performed on 15,000
samples, and 2 million robotic monitoring measurements were recorded from the upstate water supply watershed. The
Department continues to diligently optimize treatment and New York City’s water continues to meet all applicable standards.
Performance Indicators
Actual Target Trend
FY16 FY17 FY18 FY19 FY20 FY20 FY21 5-Year
Desired
Direction
Samples testing positive for coliform bacteria (%) 0.47% 0.31% 0.36% 0.25% 0.14% * * Down Down
« In-City samples meeting water quality standards for coliform
Capital commitments ($000,000) $1,590.1 $2,490.6 $1,925.2 $2,031.5 $1,029.4 $2,305.1 $2,727.6 Down
¹Actual financial amounts for the current fiscal year are not yet final. Final fiscal year actuals, from the Comptroller’s Comprehensive Annual Financial Report, will be reported
in the next PMMR. Refer to the “Indicator Definitions” at nyc.gov/mmr for details. ²Authorized Budget Level ³Expenditures include all funds “NA” - Not Available * None
4DEP revenues shown here do not include any of the approximately $1.5 billion the City receives annually from the NYC Water Board in reimbursement for operations & maintenance and in rent.
NA
DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION | Page 261
SPENDING AND BUDGET INFORMATION
Where possible, the relationship between an agency’s goals and its expenditures and planned resources, by budgetary unit
of appropriation (UA), is shown in the ‘Applicable MMR Goals’ column. Each relationship is not necessarily exhaustive or
exclusive. Any one goal may be connected to multiple UAs, and any UA may be connected to multiple goals.
Unit of Appropriation
Expenditures
FY19¹
($000,000)
Modified Budget
FY20²
($000,000) Applicable MMR Goals³
Personal Services - Total $583.9 $617.8
001 - Executive and Support $41.7 $42.7 All
002 - Environmental Management $30.3 $28.3 5a
003 - Water Supply and Wastewater Collection $221.1 $225.9 1a, 1b, 2a, 3a, 5a
007 - Central Utility $79.9 $88.0 1a, 4a, 4b
008 - Wastewater Treatment $210.8 $232.9 2a, 3a
Other Than Personal Services - Total $849.1 $846.9
¹Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) for the Fiscal Year ended June 30, 2019. Includes all funds. ²City of New York Adopted Budget for Fiscal 2020, as of June
Includes all funds. ³Refer to agency goals listed at front of chapter. “NA” Not Available *None
NOTEWORTHY CHANGES, ADDITIONS OR DELETIONS !
• The indicator ‘Acres of land solicited in watershed area’ is being discontinued. The recent National Academies of
Science, Engineering and Medicine review of the New York City Watershed Protection recommended moving away
from this metric in recognition of the maturation of the land acquisition program. Consequently, the metric is not a
meaningful gauge of the success or rate of the Department’s overall efforts to protect water quality.
• Due to improvements in water quality over the last two decades the metric ‘Percent of harbor survey stations meeting
the fishable standard of 5mg/L for dissolved oxygen’ has outlived its usefulness, as high attainment is consistently
achieved, with differences in the attainment levels driven by weather conditions rather than water quality. Since this
metric no longer reflects improvements made in water quality, the Marine Science Section is working on developing a
metric that will better reflect yearly aggregate improvements in water quality, likely through the definition of a water
quality index that incorporates multiple parameters currently being measured by the City’s Harbor Survey program.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
For more information on the agency, please visit: www.nyc.gov/dep.