710 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1913. 



be made upon the broadest possible scale; and that it should make 

 provision, not only for the immediate needs of the city, but for 

 those of many a decade to come. This has been done by the board 

 of water supply; and it is the purpose of this and the following 

 article to show that the project of bringing the Catskill Mountain 

 water to New York has been considered on such adequately com- 

 prehensive lines that the possibility of any shortage of water in this 

 great city has been removed into the very far future. 



On May 14, 1906, the State water supply commission approved 

 of the application of the board of water supply of this city for ob- 

 taining a daily supply of 500,000,000 gallons of water from the 

 Esopus, Rondout, Schoharie, and Catskill Creeks in the Catskill 

 Mountains, at an estimated cost of $161,867,000. In 1910 a plan 

 for the distribution of the water throughout Manhattan, Queens, 

 and the Bronx by a deep-pressure tunnel was approved by the board 

 of estimate and apportionment. The additional cost of this scheme 

 is $15,000,000. 



THE NEW SCHEME OF WATER SUPPLY. 



The new supply of water, of the finest mountain quality, is to be 

 taken from four watersheds, having a total area of nearly 900 square 

 miles. The total estimated capacity of these four gathering grounds 

 is, even in a series of unusually dry years, equal to supplying 770,- 

 000,000 gallons daily. Reservoirs will be built, as they are required, 

 in each of these basins, and they will be connected by aqueducts. For 

 the present, the Esopus watershed only is being developed. In a 

 series of dry years this watershed can furnish a daily supply of only 

 250,000,000 gallons; but the aqueduct leading to the city is being 

 built of double that capacity or 500,000,000 gallons daily. The fii'st 

 contract for construction was let at the close of 1906. In 1907 to 1908 

 about 5 per cent of the work was completed from Ashokan reservoir 

 in the Esopus watershed to Croton Lake. By the end of 1909, 22 

 per cent was done, 60 per cent at the close of 1910, 78 per cent by 

 1911, and at the present time about 95 per cent of the work is done. 

 The delivery of water into the Croton Reservoir, which will be pos- 

 sible this year, will prevent any possibility of water famine during 

 the completion of the new aqueduct to New York. 



The system under construction and now nearing completion con- 

 sists of a large reservoir in the Esopus Basin, an underground aque- 

 duct 17 feet in diameter by which the water is led for 64 miles to an- 

 other large basin, the Kensico Reservoir, which will serve for emerg- 

 ency storage ; a third reservoir situated about 15 miles south of Ken- 

 sico and just over the New York city line, lajown as the Hill View 

 Reservoir, which will equalize the difference between the use of water 

 in the city, which, of course, varies from hour to hour and from day 



