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Editorial: New Hope for New York’s Rivers

The Albany Times Union praised Steve Otis’s initiative in this week’s approved budget to help cash-strapped localities pay for upgrades to drinking water and water treatment infrastructure:

Funds in the just-enacted state budget, combined with recent federal legislation, can kickstart these much-needed local projects, because they’re for outright grants. The state Water Infrastructure Improvement Act of 2015 will provide $200 million over three years; the federal 2014 water resources bill adds another $46 million to the pot.

Together, this infusion of state and federal funds could make long-needed upgrades affordable for localities.

Assemblymen John McDonald, D-Cohoes, and Steve Otis, D-Rye, co-sponsored the state measure. Both are former mayors who know well how vital these grants are. U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., co-sponsored the federal legislation.

Read the full editorial here.