Commissioner’s Corner
During the final days of August, Mayor Adams visited the Department of Environmental Protection’s (DEP) construction site for one of the final shafts for the portion of City Water Tunnel №3 that will serve Queens and Brooklyn. The Mayor received an update on construction of the shafts, took the elevator to the current bottom of the shaft (about 170 feet deep) and greeted staff from DEP’s Bureau of Engineering, Design and Construction as well as the Sandhogs and other contractors that are carrying out this important work. Thank you to Deputy Commissioner Ana Barrio, Sean McAndrew and Lauren D’Attile for coordinating this visit. A video of the Mayors visit can be viewed here.
Delivering a reliable supply of high-quality water to all 8.8 million New Yorkers is one of our top missions at DEP and the work necessary to fulfill that promise requires contributions from staff across the entire agency. From our police division that patrols the watershed to the team of scientists that conduct more than 750,000 annual tests of the water to our engineers that build and maintain the system of aqueducts, tunnels and water mains to our legal, budget and contracting staff, every role is important to ensuring that when our neighbors open their tap, they reliably receive the champagne of tap water.
Collected in large, protected reservoirs in three separate systems across the Hudson Valley and Catskill Mountains, the water is of the highest quality at the source. Large aqueducts deliver the water to the city and from there massive water tunnels deep underground bring it to all corners of the five boroughs. City Water Tunnel №1 went into service and 1917 and serves the Bronx and Manhattan. City Water Tunnel №2 was activated in 1936 and brings water to the residents of Queens and Brooklyn. The much more recent Richmond Tunnel (1970) and its backup, the Staten Island Siphon (2016), deliver water to our neighbors on Staten Island.
The massive City Water Tunnels are drilled through dense bedrock several hundred feet below ground level so they are very stable and their performance is continually monitored to detect any changes. Every 20 city blocks or so a giant shaft brings the water up from the tunnels to the more than 7,000 miles of water mains that lie just below the roadways of the city. The mechanical equipment within these shafts does need to be regularly exercised and maintained to ensure that they are operating properly. In fact, the main impetus for the construction of City Water Tunnel №3 was to allow DEP to take the shafts that service Tunnels №1 and №2 out of service for regular maintenance and rehabilitation.
The construction of City Water Tunnel №3 began in 1970. The first section of the Tunnel serving the Bronx and upper portions of Manhattan went into service in 1998. The portion of the Tunnel serving midtown and lower Manhattan went into service in 2013. The tunnel for Queens/Brooklyn was completed in 2001, and since then 7 of the 9 shafts needed to support the tunnel have been completed (including 15B).
The two final shafts, 17B and 18B, demonstrate DEP’s ongoing long-term planning. Finally completing full redundancy of the water delivery system will require one last long stretch of tunnel between Hillview Reservoir in Yonkers, and Queens. To that end, in 2018–2019 the decision was made to build these two shafts in a manner that will allow for this future connection. Engineers determined that the width of the shafts must be more than doubled, from the traditional 26 feet to 60 feet. It was also determined that the number of riser pipes within the shaft should be doubled. By building these two shafts, each more than 700 feet deep, in this manner, the future connection could be made without shutting down the Queens/Brooklyn leg of the Tunnel, and it should save the City on future capital costs. We currently anticipate that construction of the two shafts will be completed in 2032.
“DEP’s Water Tunnel №3 is a critical component of New York City’s long-term infrastructure and resilience planning. The redesign will better allow for maintenance on the other tunnels and ensure every New Yorker has access to clean water,” said Kathryn Wylde, President and CEO of the Partnership for New York City.
There are, of course, scheduling uncertainties in such complex construction work, which can add or subtract time. As excavation of these 759- and 708-foot-deep shafts progress, we will periodically update New Yorkers on our forecasts.
“New York City has always recognized the need for long-term planning when it comes to its drinking water supply and RPA is pleased to see that tradition continue with work now well underway to complete the last shafts for City Water Tunnel №3 in Brooklyn and Queens,” said Tom Wright, President and CEO of Regional Plan Association. “Building these last two, very deep shafts in a manner that will make a future connection to the next tunnel easier to complete demonstrates the City’s commitment to continue to invest in the critical water supply infrastructure we all depend on.”
Most people don’t have time in their day to think a whole lot about their water, but what New Yorkers can be confident in is that the people of DEP are thinking every single day about how best to ensure that they reliably receive the champagne of tap water, and not just today, but for generations into the future. That is our mission, and we will continue to do all that is necessary to ensure we deliver on it.
Thank you to everyone at DEP that has contributed to building City Water Tunnel №3, including some of our current staff with the Bureau of Water Supply: Salome Freud and Ralph Riccardi; with the Bureau of Legal Affairs: Natalia Fekula, PJ Sagar, Susan Gordon and Irina Yadgarova; with the Bureau of Engineering, Design and Construction: Purnima Dharia, Michael Loehr, Dennis Stanford, Mohammad Hamade, Louis Csak, William Leong, Paolo Brion, Edwin Yu, Narendra Patel, Clement Chan, Albert Munoz, Wyatt Davis, Neal Bierman, Samir Patel, Robert Santora, Billal Hossain, Chuck Hui, Christian Lopez, Alina Rivera, Nicholas Hanley, Xiaobo Yu, Goutam De, Jorge Santisteban, Manoj Patel, Onayinka Famutimi, Varsha Joy, Nikhil Jacob, Alexander Lopez, My Tang, Virginia Gziki, Jeremy Fey, Om Dhodary, Joel Chapman, Gamal Ingram, Toby Singer, Flor Ruiz, Sean McAndrew, Lauren D’Attile, Kevin Ellenwood, John McCluskey, James Carlese, Ovidiu Pena, Bernard Daly, Ted Dowey, Jackie Hanna, Daniel Orlowski, Samantha Jones, Botong Zhou, John Lynch, Joel Hull, Neil Feldscher, Edgar Lopez, Anne Ruzek, Mark Klein, Lorraine Farrell, Michael Hoahing, Ana Barrio, and with the Bureau of Water and Sewer Operations: Tasos Georgelis, Michael Farnan, Andrew Kuchynsky, Jerry Fragias, Joseph Crupi, Jannine McColgan, Naomi Hamer, Fred Chyke-Okpuzor, Wendy Sperduto, Paul Sheane, Thakoor Rambrich, Michael Mitts, Marcus Evans, Kevin McGarrigle, Dennis McDermott, Nicholas Paci, Dean Salli, Alain McGhie, Chun Kit Peng, Francis Vichi, Matthew Lewis, Nour Hadjih, Mohammed Mahmuduzzaman, Sebastien Douglas, Ali Mallick, Oluwatomide Alao, Kenneth Spooner, Shawn Francois, Roopnarine Jugdeo, Mark Gabriel, Rujero Jackson, Thomas Sullivan, Stephen Darko, Jae Hyeon An, Dyalon Daley, Gennadiy Remennik, Robert Valgean, Kenton Ollivierre, Wayne Francis, Mario Cinquemani, Richard Lakatos, William Burtis, Louis Grosso, Rajpaul Satdeo, Attilio Agostino, Robert Semansky, Junior Samuel, Antonio Napolitano, Eric Febres, Francis Moy, Mohan Baichulall, Thomas McCaffery, Terri Thomas, Ferid Shabani, Pinki Mondal, Adil Majid, David Daniel, Abid Bacchus, Angelo Zuardo, Andrew Ganesh, Sham Hemraj, John Byrne, Paul Jhagroo, Shafraz Bacchus, Dushyant Patel,Kent Chin, Jude St. Clair, Khondoker Alam, Mustafa Emon, Victor Viloria, Deonarine Bindesh, Vejay Budhu, Tadeusz Kuzmicki, Zdzislaw Solinski, Jaroslaw Bartoszewicz, Russell Reinhartsen, Botros Rofaeel, Marek Krajewski, Anand Shrikishun, Fernando Pesantes, Veerasammy Chetana, Jose Cortes, Winston Lester, Kevin Guthrie, Nicholas Maxwell, Jinu Chandy, Manesh Madhusoodana,Zamal Khan, Mazda Riazi, Marcus Brinkley, George Walfisch, Luis Bula, Frank Brown, Gregory Melville, Jose Ramirez, Ramnauth Narind, Reginal Eze, Michael Sullivan, Daniel Lefkowitz, Brian Koch, Tom Delaney, Dennis Delaney, Nic Barbaro, Paul Villella, Anthony Marchese, Jaime Berkeley, Guo Zhan Wu,Shofiqule Azam, Mohammad Karim, Ali Aazaad, Steven Lin, Wendy Sperduto, Peter Gordon, Rong Yuan, Sol Posada,Roberto Lumelino, Baalahi Babujee, Christopher Chiaffitelli, Lal Sarju, Nelson Leon, Victoria Rubino, Shay McAtamney,Noah Berg-Mattson, Nicholas Farina, Irene Fong, Darlene Rosario, Jennene Herdsman and Johnny Chu.
