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History of NYC Water Supply

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Title: 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
14
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

26
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).

30
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
35
Watersheds
36
Port Jervis
Port Jervis
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