Few people are surprised that New York City will not have to spend $10 billion to build a filtration plant for its drinking water. What’s troubling for Delaware County and watershed leaders is that the city has a green light to impose its will on the upstate region for another 10 years.

We agree that it’s troubling.

The federal Environmental Protection Agency announced Monday it granted the 10-year waiver to New York City, permitting it to avoid filtering water from its upstate reservoirs. Previous waivers have been for five years.

The city got its first five-year waiver in 1993 and, threatened with not being granted another one, it signed the 1997 Memorandum of Agreement with the watershed towns. By offering the Catskill watershed towns $270 million over 10-to-15 years to keep the area clean, the city was able to get its filtration waiver renewed, thereby saving billions of dollars.

Of course, those millions also were to offset the costs and burdens of increased regulations, such as upgraded wastewater treatment and septic systems, less agricultural pollution and city land acquisition.

But unlike the 1997 MOA negotiations, in which local watershed officials were directly involved, the talks surrounding the latest filtration waiver included only state, federal and city officials. The locals were allowed to send in comments.

Big deal.

So, despite local concerns about the rising costs of regulations, increased city purchase of watershed land and more restrictions on land use, officials in the watershed were not directly involved in the decision to extend the waiver for, not five, but 10 years.

And the perspectives of the two sides are quite different.

State Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner Peter Grannis raves about how the agreement expands programs for land acquisition, forest easements and buffers, agriculture and stream programs, and wastewater treatment plant upgrades.

Delaware County board Chairman James Eisel, on the other hand, said ``it’s an outrage" that the waiver allows for city acquisition of $300 million worth of land, because his county would be most affected.

After two large NYC land purchases in Harpersfield, which is miles away from the watershed, Eisel said, "there is no science here" in protecting environmental quality.

In addition, the DEC and the state Health Department were enthusiastic about how the latest accord would ``enhance the local economy.’’

However, buying up land creates problems for local residents and limits the economic future of the municipalities, Eisel said.

We’ve heard stories about how extensive and costly regulations of septic upgrades have almost forced businesses to close and put people out of work.

Needless to say, not all parties are on the same page. They all want clean water in the watershed, whether it’s going to NYC or not. But we see no reason to allow the city to continue its infringement for more than five years before another review.

And next time, let’s allow the people affected by the deal to sit in on the talks.