History of NYC Water Supply
Systems used to provide drinking water
Consequences of inadequate water supply
History of NYC water supply
Monroe L. Weber-Shirk
School of Civil and
Environmental Engineering
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
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.
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
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.
First Water Works (shortly before
the revolution)
 1774 - Common Council made its first move to
construct a _________________
municipally owned 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 “Newcommen engine”
 The revolution interrupted the work
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.
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.
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
Company’s Bank began its long and successful career.
flow of capital, not flow of water…
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
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
Col. Clinton’s 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
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
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)
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 _____
1899 demand was exceeding the supply
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
Catskill System Stage 1:
More Water!
Completed in 1917
Ashokan Reservoir
Catskill Aqueduct
Kensico Reservoir
Hillview Reservoir
City Tunnel 1
Silver Lake Reservoir in Staten Island
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
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
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
Supply Aqueducts and Tunnels
Catskill Aqueduct (1915)
Shandaken Tunnel (1928)
Delaware Aqueduct (1944)
Neversink Tunnel (1950)
East Delaware Tunnel (1954)
West Delaware Tunnel (1967)
NYC Population
population
10,000,000
1,000,000
100,000
1800
1850
1900
year
1950
2000
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
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
Brainstorm!
Water Sources for NYC
Source
Advantages
Disadvantages
Old Croton Aqueduct
Historic view of the Old Croton Aqueduct being reconstructed
in the Division Wall of the Jerome Park Reservoir in 1898
(1907 Report to the Aqueduct Commissioners).
Saw Mill River Bridge
Historic illustration of the Saw Mill River Bridge, Old Croton
Aqueduct, Yonkers (Tower, 1843).
High Bridge
Carried the Old
Croton aqueduct
over the Harlem
River into
Manhattan
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).
New Croton Dam
New Croton Dam
NYC Fire Department
Old Croton Dam
Constructed between 1837 and 1842
50 ft high (elevation 166.2 ft)
240 ft wide spillway
Cornell’s 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
Watersheds
Port Jervis
Port Jervis