Please note: this text may be incomplete. For more information about this OCR, view
About OCR text.
^M^
JULY 20, 1912.
' "^w^'mw^'
'â– i
'-.,«*
_ai^
THERE WILL BE 2,000 AERATING JETS LIKE THIS AT KENSICO RESERVOIR.
CATSKILL WATER SUPPLY AND ITS DISTRIBUTION
Manhattan and Bronx Will Get 280,000,000 Gallons a Day, Brooklyn and Queens
200.000,000, and Richmond 20,000,000—First Installment of 250,000.000 Gallons in 1914.
By CHARLESIN. CHADWICK, Member of^the Board of Catskill Water Supply.
IN an address at the Academy of Music
In Brooklyn on the "Making and Ad¬
ministration of a Modern City,'^ President
Elliott of Harvard said that "the funda¬
mental elements are light, air and
water." He placed the emphasis upon
water.
The problems of transportation, police,
parks, schools and sanitation are vital,
but the emphasis must be placed upon
water; in the city the faucet is turned,
'.lie water runs and the household affairs
and economies adjust themselves orderly
to the needs of the home. Turn the
faucet and If the water does not run.
the immediate remedy is the plumber;
should the difficulty prove to be with the
source of supply, the annoyance would
soon become serious. Imagine for a
moment the water supply of a great city
cut off for a period of even two days.
Such a condition would mean disaster;
the activities of the city would be para¬
lyzed and all other problems would dis¬
appear in the greatest proTDlem of all—
an adequate supply of pure and whole¬
some 'water for the needs of a great city.
Such a condition threatened the city of
Brooklyn in 1896; such a condition threat¬
ened the Borough of Manhattan last year.
' Light and air are ours, if we do not
take pains to exclude them. Water is
another matter. To secure an adequate
supply of pure and wholesome water is a
matter of time and of great expense;
conditions must be studied, data ob¬
tained, reports made, public sentiment
developed, before a great •work of this
character can be actively undertaken.
As a matter of fact, the problem of an
additional supply of water for Greater
New York was under discussion for
more than eiight years before the city ac¬
tively undertook the work. In its solu¬
tion a great problem of civic administra¬
tion has been successfully worked out;
out of it has grown perhaps the greatest
construction 'work of a civic charactei;
ever undertaken—the bringing of 500.-
000,000 gallons daily of pure and whole¬
some water from the Catskill Mountains
to the metropolitan district of Greater
New York, at an estimated cost of $177,-
000,000, involving the construction of great
reservoirs and an aqueduct of one hun¬
dred and fifty miles in length, large
enough for a train of Pullman cars to
pass t'hrotigrli.
The iplan covers a period of twenty
years for the entire work. The first in¬
stallment of 250,000,000 gallons daily Is to
be delivered within the first period of ten
years, or in about two years from now
the city of New York will drink the
health of Father Knickerbocker in a cup
of cold water brought from the far-away
mountains of the Catskills. The second
installment will follow in due time.
All Boroughs AVill Be Supplied.
This water is to be distributed through
the five boroughs of the Greater New
COMMISSIO.VER CHARLES N. CHADWICK
York as needed. Queries are frequently
made by residents of the different bor¬
oughs as to what advantage the ques¬
tioner's borougli Is to receive from the
Catskill Mountain water supply. To each
and every inquiry it can be stated that
the Catskill supply is for the benefit of
all five boroughs of the Greater New
Tork. The aqueduct is being so con¬
structed that its operations will be
adaptable to the varying needs of the
several boroughs from time to time, and
the Catskill system will supplement the
Croton and Bronx supplies from the
north, the Ridgewood supply from the
east and the various local supplies in
Queens and Hichmond.
In a general way, an apportionment of
the 500,000.000 gallons daily of the ulti¬
mate capacity of the Catskill Aqueduct
has been made as follows:
For the Bronx and Manhattan 280,000,-
000 gallons, for Brooklyn and Queens 200,-
000,000 gallons and for Richmond 20,000,-
000 gallons, daily. It will, however, be
easily possible at any time to send more
or less than this apportionment to any
one of the boroughs, as may be de¬
termined by existing circumstances.
Bronx Alay Have First Call.
The Borough of the Bronx, being the
most northerly, could have the first call
on Catskill water, if this should be nec¬
essary. It will have advantages similar
to those which accrue to the other bor¬
oughs, namely, that much public and
private pumping can be done away with
because of the higher elevation to which
Catskill wate'r will rise by gravity, and
the assurance of an abundant supply,
supplementing its present sources, the
Croton and the Bronx. Since Hill View
Reservoir, just across the Yonkers' line,
will have its water surface 235 feet above
tide level, water in the Bronx will rise
to nearly this elevation wherever proper
arrangements of street piping are made
therefor. But the Bronx will have some
advantages peculiarly its own. The lit¬
tle reservoir near Valhalla, about three
miles above White Plains, known as
Lake Kensico, which formerly conserved
the waters of the Bronx and Byram riv¬
ers, has already been supplanted by a
much larger reservoir, known as New
Rye Reservoir, temporarily formed in the
bottom of the great new Kensico Reser¬
voir. This latter reservoir, now in
progress of construction, will not only
furnish ample storage for a great
quantity of Catskill water near New
"York, but will make possit)le the full use
of all water of the Bronx and Byram
rivers; thus the supply of the Williams¬
bridge district has already been improved,
and is to have still further improvement.
In order to protect the waters of the
new Kensico reservoir, the city has taken
large areas of marginal land; these, with
the beautiful lake itself, will, make an
attractive park.
From the Borough of the Bronx to
Kensico reservoir, the Bronx Parkway
Commission proposes to build a fine
boulevard along the Bronx river. Citi¬
zens of the Bronx will be the nearest to