History of NYC Water Supply

1
History of NYC Water Supply

• Systems used to provide drinking water
• Consequences of inadequate water supply

History of NYC water supply
2
Drinking Water Systems

• Wells and springs 1664 - 1842
• Croton Aqueduct 1842
• New Croton System 1890
• Catskill System Stage 1 1917
• Catskill System Stage 2 1928
• Delaware System 1937-1964

3
Early History (Wells)

• 1626 - Peter Minuit purchased Manhattan Island
  from the Indians
• 1664 (1500 inhabitants) - water obtained from
  private wells
• 1658 - first public well was dug near Bowling
  Green. More public wells were dug at the street
  corners.

4
Pre-Revolutionary War History

• 1750 - water drawn from many of the public wells
  was notoriously foul
• The absence of a sewer system permitted much
  unwholesome matter to find its way into the
  ground. (Hall, 1917)
• Tubbs of odour and nastiness were emptied into
  the street... (Hall, 1917)
• 1774 (30,000 inhabitants) - water shortage

5
Fire

• On September 21, 1776, six days after the
  British captured the city, a fire broke out at
  the foot of Whitetail street and spread to
  Broadway, burning up on the east side as far as
  Mr. Harrison's brick house and on the west side
  to St. Paul's chapel. Trinity church and 493
  houses were destroyed.
• Frisbie, R. (Ed.). (1993). Water for New York
  City. Saugerties NY Hope Farm Press.
• The fire of 1776 destroyed almost one quarter of
  the houses in the city.
• Weidner, C. H. (1974). Water for a City A
  History of New York City's Problem from the
  Beginning to the Delaware River System. New York
  Rutgers University Press.

6
First Water Works (shortly before the revolution)

• 1774 - Common Council made its first move to
  construct a _________________ water supply system
  
• Christopher Colles, an English civil engineer
  attempted to pump water from wells and the
  Collect (a pond) through hollow logs to a
  reservoir at Broadway and White Street using a
  New-commen engine
• The revolution interrupted the work

municipally owned
7
Disease

• In 1798 yellow fever took the lives of two
  thousand persons in New York City. The annual
  deaths from cholera, typhoid fever, and other
  diseases directly attributable to contaminated
  water and wretched sanitary conditions at the
  time that yellow fever was making its regular
  visitations in the 1790s and 1800s will never be
  known. From all accounts the number was great.
• Weidner, C. H. (1974). Water for a City A
  History of New York City's Problem from the
  Beginning to the Delaware River System. New York
  Rutgers University Press.

8
Disease

• There were epidemics of yellow fever in 1795,
  1798, 1805, 1819, and 1822, and of cholera in
  1832, 1834, 1849, and 1855. The epidemic of 1805
  was particularly severe. John Lambert's diary
  says that in that year 26,000 persons moved from
  the interior of the City to Greenwich village to
  escape the plague.
• Frisbie, R. (Ed.). (1993). Water for New York
  City. Saugerties NY Hope Farm Press.

9
The Manhattan Company

• 1799 - Common Council submitted to the New York
  state legislature a bill to grant the city of New
  York with pure and wholesome water.
• The bill included a provision for the
  incorporation of the Manhattan Company (Aaron
  Burr, Daniel Ludlow, John B. Church)
• said company was to pursue the laudable
  undertaking of supplying the city with water,
  which promised, under the blessing of God, to be
  conducive to the health and safety of the
  inhabitants of said city.
• Burr included a clause in the Bill providing
  that its surplus capital might be employed in any
  transactions not inconsistent with the laws of
  the State.
• A capital of 2,000,000 was at once provided, and
  the Manhattan Companys Bank began its long and
  successful career.

flow of capital, not flow of water
10
The Manhattan Company

• 1799 - reservoir of 550,000 gallons and a new
  well, 6 miles of wooden pipes and water to 400
  families
• 1808 - 20 miles of wooden pipes
• 1809 - tree roots clogged many of the original
  pipes
• 1812 - interrupted service for 5 weeks while
  installing a new pump engine
• 1830 - 40 miles of wooden pipes and water to
  about 60,000 (Manhattan had a population of
  200,000)
• Provided 700,000 gallons/day

C.H. Weidner, Water for a City A History of New
York City's Problem from the Beginning to the
Delaware River System, Rutgers University Press,
New York (1974).page 22
11
More Fires

• Disastrous fires, which might have been
  controlled had there been an adequate supply of
  water, occurred in 1828 and 1835. The latter
  leveled twenty blocks and was stopped only by
  blowing up buildings in its path. Before it was
  extinguished it had destroyed 674 buildings, 530
  of which were stores or commercial
  establishments. Estimates of property loss were
  as high as 40,000,000. More than fifteen hundred
  merchants were ruined several thousand clerks
  and laborers were thrown out of work. Nearly all
  the fire insurance companies in the city went
  bankrupt.
• Weidner, C. H. (1974). Water for a City A
  History of New York City's Problem from the
  Beginning to the Delaware River System. New York
  Rutgers University Press.

NYCFD
12
Col. Clintons 1832 report

• Shipping paid 50,000 per year for water supplied
  from Long Island and New Jersey
• Many ships carried enough water to last them for
  the journey back to Europe to avoid having to use
  NYC water!
• Clinton recommended a dam on the Croton river
  with an aqueduct to transport the water to NYC

13
Old Croton Aqueduct

• Follows the surface of the ground along the bank
  of the Croton River to the Hudson, and along the
  Hudson to Yonkers.
• Capacity 72 to 95 million gallons/day
• 1842 population served was 300,000
• per capita consumption was expected to be 22
  gallons/day

Old Croton Aqueduct
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Inadequacy of Old Croton Aqueduct and Reservoir

• 25 years after completion the aqueduct was
  running at more than its design capacity
• Croton reservoir was also inadequate
• Severe shortages of water in 1869, 1871, 1880,
  1881.
• All reservoirs emptied
• Lakes in Croton watershed emptied by condemnation
  (with violent opposition from the property owners)

15
New Croton Aqueduct

• Aqueduct opened in 1890
• 15 ft diameter tunnel
• 50 to 500 ft below surface
• not pressurized
• 33.1 miles long
• capacity 340 million gallons/day
• water consumption jumped from 102 mgd to 170 mgd
• by _____ demand was exceeding the supply

1899
16
New Croton Dam

• The New Croton Dam began construction in 1892 and
  was completed on New Years Day 1907
• The Dam cost New York City approximately 12
  million dollars
• It was built in large part by Irish, German and
  Italian immigrants

New Croton Dam
17
Catskill System Stage 1More Water!

• Completed in 1917
• Ashokan Reservoir
• Catskill Aqueduct
• Kensico Reservoir
• Hillview Reservoir
• City Tunnel 1
• Silver Lake Reservoir in Staten Island

18
Catskill System

• Stage 2 More Water!
• Schoharie watershed
• Enlarged city distribution system
• Catskill system completed in 1928
• Provided 614 mgd
• 1932 estimated to be the time when the demand
  would once again exceed supply

19
Delaware System

• 1931 - The US Supreme Court handed down a decree
  permitting NYC, under certain conditions, to take
  440 mgd from the tributaries of the Delaware
  River
• NYC required to build a wastewater treatment
  plant at Port Jervis
• NYC was required to maintain a minimum flow at
  Port Jervis, NY and at Trenton NJ
• Currently 1520 cubic feet per second required in
  the Delaware River at Montague, NJ

20
Delaware System

• 170 miles of deep-rock pressure and grade tunnels
• Designed to carry all the water available in the
  Delaware River watershed
• 1 bgd (billion gallons/day)
• Construction from 1937-1964
• No treatment beyond chlorination

21
Supply Aqueducts and Tunnels
22
NYC Population
population
Delaware
Croton
New Croton
year
Catskill
23
Filtration Prediction

• I venture to express the belief that by 20 years
  hence the public will have become educated to
  demand a higher standard of purity in public
  water supplies and that all future work should be
  laid out with a view to filtration 10 or 20 years
  hence of all water entering the distribution
  system. The conduits should run past land
  suitable for filter beds and head or fall be
  reserved suitable for working the filters without
  any expense for pumping. Personally, I believe
  that with complete meters and proper waste
  restriction filters could be properly advised at
  once for the Croton supply, and I find as
  detailed in the report that to filter the present
  supply with all its waste would cost only about
  35 cents per capita per year.

J.R. Freeman, Report upon New York's Water
Supply, Martin B. Brown Co., New York (1900). p.
12
24
NYC Water Supply Summary

• NYC almost continuously expanded its water supply
  from the beginning until the late 1960s
• NYC continues to expand its water distribution
  system
• NYC water demand has stabilized
• NYC is focusing its efforts on water quality and
  on water conservation

25
Brainstorm!Water Sources for NYC

• Source Advantages Disadvantages

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Old Croton Aqueduct
Historic view of the Old Croton Aqueduct being
reconstructedin the Division Wall of the Jerome
Park Reservoir in 1898(1907 Report to the
Aqueduct Commissioners).
27
Saw Mill River Bridge

Historic illustration of the Saw Mill River
Bridge, Old Croton Aqueduct, Yonkers (Tower,
1843).
28
High Bridge

• Carried the Old Croton aqueduct over the Harlem
  River into Manhattan

29
High Bridge

Historic illustration of the High Bridge over the
Harlem River, just prior to its completion.
Manhattan Island is at left, "The Continent of
America" at right (Schramke, 1846).

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New Croton Dam
31
New Croton Dam
32
NYC Fire Department
33
Old Croton Dam

• Constructed between 1837 and 1842
• 50 ft high (elevation 166.2 ft)
• 240 ft wide spillway

34
Cornells Hydraulic Experiments

• An investigation by experiments on full-size
  model of the Croton dam crests-made in the new
  hydraulic laboratory of Cornell University -
  proves that the formula used heretofore for
  computing the water wasted exaggerated this flow
  about 9 per cent.

J.R. Freeman, Report upon New York's Water
Supply, Martin B. Brown Co., New York (1900).
page 13
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Watersheds
36
Port Jervis
Port Jervis