Editorial Board

For all of the time, effort and money the Cuomo administration is putting into improving the state's business climate — and broadcasting those business-friendlier conditions to potential investors — more could be made of one of the state's most valuable assets: Its abundance of water.

As the only state with shorelines along both the Atlantic Ocean and the Great Lakes, New York is literally swimming in a resource that some parts of the country — states like Nevada and Arizona — can only dream of. The benefits are especially prevalent in western New York, which not only borders two Great Lakes but is home to the Genesee River and the Finger Lakes.

Indeed, longtime residents can become inured to just how good they've got it on the north coast. Rochester, for example, was named by the state Health Department last year as having New York's best tasting drinking water. And abundant water supplies fuel the area's two biggest industries: agriculture and tourism.

Between rivers, small lakes, the historic Erie Canal, the Finger Lakes and the Great Lakes, there isn't a form of water-based recreation — from fishing to swimming to kayaking to yachting to water-skiing — that isn't readily available.

As a practical matter, more importantly, the region's homes and businesses are awash in the resource — a far cry from, say, California, where more than half the state is currently enduring a record-setting drought. Lakes and reservoirs are shrinking, farmers are scrambling and prices are climbing. The U.S. Department of Agriculture predicts some meat and produce prices will rise as much as 6 percent this year owing to higher costs to water crops and livestock.

Avocado farmers can't pick up stakes and move their operations to New York, but plenty of other businesses can. Which is why the state should make more noise about the stealth benefit that is its fresh water supplies. A couple of the spots in this year's Summer Tourism television campaign make fleeting reference to the state's beaches and fishing, but the resource should be pushed harder to potential business interests. A section of the state's Start-Up NY website headlined "Why New York?" for instance, highlights accessible land, reduced taxes and low-cost energy, but says nothing about the state's water supplies.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo and state leaders must not only exploit this resource, by the way, but protect it. That's why the ongoing review of hydrofracking — which could threaten fresh water supplies — is defensible, and why the state Department of Environmental Conservation must likewise weigh carefully projects like the proposed liquid petroleum gas facility near Seneca Lake in Schuyler County.

The bottom line: the state's unique abundance of water, especially in western New York, not only augments the quality of life for residents, but is an important liquid asset in attracting new businesses. Trumpet it.