NEW YORK'S WATER.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIV, Issue 4593, 27 August 1923, Page 1

NEW YORK'S WATER.

• KROM- SOURCE TO CONSUMER; It is estimated that, it takes “a drink of water” five or six weeks to travel from the Catskill Mountans and through the Ashokan Reservoir to the consumer in Manhattan, a distance of something over 100 miles, states the New York Times. How many residents of the five boroughs know that the big town uses up about gallons of .water a day; that the supply to the city .averages 128 gallons a day for each person ; that the price of an evening paper, 2 cents, covers the cost to a citizen of his water supply for a week ? The waler board experts believe that New York’s supply is not only the largest, but, the best and cheapest in the world. The weeks the water [takes to get to New York are not wasted- First it is aerated and treated with liquid chlorine, to remove, possible impurities. It dallies awhile in the Ashokan Reservoir, then dives into f> seventy-foot concrete lined aqueduct, for the long trip to Cornwall, where the aqueduct goes under the Hudson ; then, on the New York side of the river, it winds along to the Kensico Reservoir,, above the White Plains, where it “comes up for air” and to loaf awhile longer before taking the tube for the Hill View Reservoir, just above tjie city line in Yonkers. The time it spends in the reservoir is not wasted, as an important part of its purification comes ■ from this rest period. Coming up for airj is no figure of speech, as far as this water is concerned. It is one of the popular outdoor sports for motorists up that way tp stop awhile and watch the multitudinous geysers of the Kensico aeration plant send • their white shafts into the air. New York, water makes a pretty good movie as it is turned into fountains of spray and mist. It is worth a trip to Kensico to see 1600 fountains playing ail at, one time. The water, supply is then syphoned under the East River to Brooklyn, and across the Narrows from Bay Ridge to Staten Island, where it is temporarily stored at Silver Lake, 127 mile,s from AshokanThe large water main is as deep oelow the surface at Broadway and Fourteenth Street as the Woolworth Tower is above it. farther downtojvn. The Catskill system will be augmented some time during next year by the new Scholarie Reservoir, which will make available about 300,003.000’ gallons additional t-j the present supply. The new Gilboa Damand all work in connection with the new system is being done by the Board of Water Supply.