Turn on the tap, and water flows without a second thought. But deep beneath New York City, hundreds of feet below street level, workers are finishing a project that\u2019s been under construction for more than half a century \u2014 a massive water tunnel that will help keep that simple act possible for generations to come.<\/p>\n
Tunnel No. 3, as it\u2019s known, is one of the most ambitious infrastructure projects in the city\u2019s history.<\/p>\n
When complete, it will ensure New Yorkers continue to receive clean water from upstate reservoirs \u2014 some more than 125 miles away \u2014 while allowing long-overdue maintenance on the city\u2019s two older tunnels, built in 1917 and 1936.<\/p>\n
What You Need To Know<\/p>\n
About 95% of New York City\u2019s water supply flows into the city by gravity through three water tunnels
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Tunnels 1 and 2 were completed in 1917 and 1936, respectively
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Construction on Tunnel 3 began in 1970 and currently serves the Bronx and Manhattan
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The final two shafts in Queens are expected to be completed by 2032, allowing for long-term repairs to the city\u2019s aging water infrastructure<\/p>\n
City Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Rohit Aggarwala and DEP Portfolio Manager Lauren D\u2019Attile recently took an elevator nearly 800 feet down to see the progress for themselves.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not quite as far down as the Empire State Building is tall, but it\u2019s getting there,\u201d Aggarwala said during the 10-minute descent.<\/p>\n
Down below, flashlights cut through the darkness as water dripped from the rock walls. Workers stood in waterproof boots along the cool, damp concrete \u2014 the result of decades of digging, drilling and sealing off bare rock to create a watertight tunnel system.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen this tunnel was originally constructed, it was built by a tunnel boring machine, which is a very large piece of equipment with cutter heads on the front,\u201d said D\u2019Attile. \u201cWe drill the tunnel and after that we line that bare rock with a couple of feet of concrete \u2014 so that\u2019s what you\u2019re seeing now, because this tunnel is complete.\u201d<\/p>\n
Construction on Tunnel No. 3 began in 1970.<\/p>\n
The Bronx and Manhattan already receive water from it, and the final phase \u2014 extending service to Brooklyn and Queens \u2014 is expected to be completed by 2032.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe project started in 1970, it will be finished in 2032 \u2014 that\u2019s 62 years to build this thing,\u201d Aggarwala said. \u201cBut a project like this is going to serve New York for two, three hundred years, who knows how much longer than that. Seems worth it. Totally worth it. It\u2019s what makes the city work because we are constantly investing in our future.\u201d<\/p>\n
When it\u2019s complete, the DEP will finally be able to take the older tunnels offline for repairs \u2014 a step city engineers have waited decades to take.<\/p>\n
Above ground, New Yorkers will keep turning on their faucets, washing dishes, and filling glasses \u2014 rarely thinking about the billion gallons of water flowing through the underground arteries that make city life possible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Turn on the tap, and water flows without a second thought. But deep beneath New York City, hundreds…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":34668,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[2296,25,128,231,9,24,12,63,2297,129,131,130,27,200],"class_list":{"0":"post-34667","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-the-bronx","8":"tag-app-human-interest","9":"tag-app-top-stories","10":"tag-bronx","11":"tag-human-interest","12":"tag-new-york","13":"tag-new-york-city","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-nyc","16":"tag-roger-clark","17":"tag-the-bronx","18":"tag-the-bronx-headlines","19":"tag-the-bronx-news","20":"tag-top-stories","21":"tag-vod"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34667","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34667"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34667\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}