The water system I researched is the system in Manhattan, New York. New York has one the the largest and most big water systems in the world with tunnels, aqueducts and reservoirs. Most of the water comes from the sky in which the New York department of Environmental protection, collects it and cleans it. The system is great but also has its flaws. Underground there are dams and the dams are not built high enough. When there is a day when it rains the entire time, the dams are already pretty full and added on top of that NYC has a dense population where people are flushing their toilets and taking showers. All of that water goes into the dams and the water system, and the dam overflows and goes into the hudson uncleaned since there are two pathways. If it overflows the water does not get cleaned and reused but instead just empties into the river. The journey the water takes to get to your facet is a crazy process.
The water we drink comes from and through mountains and valleys and then underground tunnels just to get to our sink. A billion gallons of water are delivered each day, with just gravity pushing it along. On the way it gets cleaned by ultraviolet light, chlorine, fluoride, and tested for purity.
The city’s drinking water starts out in three places, the Delaware, Catskill and Croton system. New York City gets around 97 percent of its water from the Catskill and Delaware systems and only 3 percent from the Croton system. These watersheds feed many reservoirs and lakes. The largest is the Pepacton and has a capacity of 140 billion gallons. The water goes from the reservoirs and lakes into a system of aqueducts and tunnels. These include the super old Catskill Aqueduct, which goes 92 miles from the Ashokan Reservoir in the Catskill Mountains to the northern end of the city, and relies solely on gravity to carry the water. When they finished it in the early 1900s, the aqueduct was seen by many as an engineering achievement like that of the Panama canal. The Delaware Aqueduct is much newer. The Delaware is so large that they use a two-man submarine to inspect it for leaks.
All the water flows with gravity and the hill system. The water goes through the Catskill and Delaware aqueducts and then comes to the Kensico Reservoir close to White Plains. The water then gets treated with fluoride and gets disinfected. From these places, water is distributed throughout the city in three tunnels. The first tunnel was put into service in 1917. The second tunnel has been in service since 1936. Tunnel 3 started serving the Bronx and upper Manhattan in 1998 and lower Manhattan in 2013. Construction keeps going on the Brooklyn and Queens parts.
After that entire process the water arrives in your home. If your building is less than six stories high, gravity flows the water. If not, then they have pumps in your building that help to move the water to the top floors. To keep up the quality, testing is done at almost 1,000 sampling stations around the city.
