Water is one of the most precious resources known to man, yet we often take it for granted. We use it to flush our toilets, wash our clothes, make our food, fabricate machinery, and more. Access to water has become so regular in the United States that most people don’t think about where it comes from. Today we will talk about how a place as big as New York City gets its water.
Believe it or not, the water supply for NYC starts as far as 125 miles away in upstate New York. The water falls as rain, is captured by the mountains in the Catskill, Delaware, and Croton watersheds, and is then channeled into rivers, valleys, gorges, and streams. This system is the largest surface water collection system in the world and can deliver more than 1.1 billion gallons of water to the over 9 million residents living there. This system spans over 1,972 square miles!
Once the water is channeled into lakes and reservoirs, it is taken underground into a series of aqueducts. The two most notable aqueducts are the Catskill aqueduct and the Delaware aqueduct. The Catskill has the capacity to carry roughly 500 million gallons of water per day into the city, and the Delaware has the capacity to carry up to 1.3 billion gallons of water per day. The Delaware is so big that manned submarines are used to check it for leaks.
The two aqueducts dump their water into the Kensico reservoir where it stays until it is needed. When the city demands the water, it is taken from the Kensico reservoir and passed through the world’s-largest UV water treatment facility. Here the water is mixed with fluoride and activated with UV light. This light works to remove bacteria and other harmful substances from the water. The facility is one of a kind and no other facility in the world comes close to the max throughput of 2 billion gallons a day.
Before heading into the center of the city, the water stops in one more reservoir. There it is further disinfected, balanced, and stored for use. When it is needed, it heads into three main water tunnels. Water tunnel 1 was built in 1917, and still serves all of Manhattan with its water needs. Today this tunnel faces severe aging effects, so it meets up with tunnel 2 inside the city. Tunnel 2 was built in 1936 and runs into Brooklyn. When Tunnel 2 was completed, it was the widest diameter water tunnel in the world. Today there is one more tunnel, Tunnel 3. This tunnel has been under construction since the 1970’s. It is the largest construction project in all of NYC history, is more than 60 miles long, and travels more than 500 feet below the streets of the city. It is expected to temporarily replace Tunnel 1 until it can be repaired.
Finally, the water is in the city and ready to be pumped into houses and buildings. To create water pressure at the faucet, pumps push water up to the top of buildings into water towers where the water stays until it is needed. When in use, the water will feed, with the aid of gravity, down the pipes and out of a faucet.
That’s all there is to it! Despite sounding simple though, the NYC water system is truly a marvel of modern engineering. New Yorker’s couldn’t function without it, and knowing about the process brings a new respect for where water comes from. Next time you are in the city, make sure to save some water. It isn’t easy to get!
City infrastructure is so fascinating! I’ve always marveled about how city roads, electricity grid, and sewer systems work, but I’ve never thought about the water system in depth like this! This was super fun to read too because of all of the interesting facts you included (submarines to repair leaks!!!). I also can’t rap my head around what 2 billion gallons of water per day would even look like.
When I think about stuff like this, it makes me really appreciate what the human race is capable of.
Great post Harrison! I really enjoyed how you explained this so in-depth; I would have never thought to research it on my own! Like you said, NYC’s water system is a true marvel of modern engineering! Keep up the good work!
That’s fascinating. Whenever you say aqueducts, I think of the Greco-Romanic thingies. Driving a submarine through some pipes sounds super cool but I think I would be very claustrophobic and not like that. 60 miles of tunnel is absolutely insane and I understand why it’s considered the biggest construction project. Man, new york’s water system is old.
This is amazing! I never knew the complex nature of the water delivery system in New York city, I honestly thought they just filtered the sea/river water around them, however this is much more complex and interesting. I especially loved the part where they have to use manned submarines to fix issues in some tunnels, thats fascinating! Can’t wait to see what comes next!
I knew cities’ infrastructure reached deep underground, but I wouldn’t have expected it to reach 500ft below ground! I’m also astonished that the system is actually still working and providing clean water to New Yorkers. Your post also makes me curious about how even bigger cities can function! Like how does this exist in Tokyo where the population is ~1.5 times bigger than NYC?