NEW YORK CITY, New York: As New York City’s water supply system undergoes repairs to address massive leaks, the city’s officials assured residents that water flowing from their faucets will continue to be perfectly safe, even if it might have a taste.
The temporary shutdown begins this week of a stretch of the Delaware Aqueduct in upstate New York, which carries water from the Catskill region. This means the city will depend on reservoirs in the northern suburbs whose water could affect people with more sensitive palates, used to the famously crisp taste of New York City water.
“New Yorkers should know that your water is going to taste a little, slightly different. Some of you are not going to pick it up,” Mayor Eric Adams said before sipping a bit of water at a news conference announcing the work.
The Associated Press quoted Adams, calling it “perfectly safe, good water.”
As part of a US$2 billion project, a section of the Delaware Aqueduct is being drained to address profuse leaks beneath the Hudson River. The temporary cutoff has been in the works for years, with officials steadily boosting capacity from other parts of the city’s sprawling 19-reservoir system.
The aqueduct is the longest tunnel in the world and carries water for 85 miles (137 kilometers) from four reservoirs in the Catskill region to other reservoirs in the northern suburbs. Operating since 1944, it provides roughly half the 1.1 billion gallons a day used by more than eight million New York City residents. The system also serves some upstate municipalities.
However, the aqueduct leaks up to 35 million gallons of water a day, nearly all of it from a section far below the Hudson.
The profuse leakage has been known for decades, but city officials could not take the critical aqueduct offline to repair the tunnel. So instead, they began constructing a parallel 2.5-mile (4-kilometer) bypass tunnel under the river about a decade ago.
The new tunnel will be connected during the shutdown, expected to last up to eight months. More than 40 miles of the aqueduct running down from the four upstate reservoirs will be out of service during that time, though a section closer to the city will remain in use.
Other leaks farther north in the aqueduct also will be repaired in the coming months.
Capacity for the complementary Catskill Aqueduct has been increased, and more drinking water will come from the dozen reservoirs and three lakes of the Croton Watershed in the northern suburbs. According to city officials, the heavier reliance on those suburban reservoirs could affect the taste of water due to a higher presence of minerals and algae in the Croton system.
