SCIENCETECH · HISTORICAL MARKER
The New York City Water Supply System
Loch Sheldrake, New York
· Neversink Reservoir
Science & Tech
2
The Neversink Reservoir in Sullivan County, completed in 1954 by damming the Neversink River, holds 34.9 billion gallons at full capacity and collects water from a watershed of 92 square miles. One of four reservoirs in the Delaware Water Supply, the newest of New York City's three water supplies, it sends water six miles through the Neversink Tunnel to the Rondout Reservoir, where it mixes with water from the Cannonsville and Pepacton reservoirs before traveling south through the 85-mile Delaware Aqueduct, the longest continuous tunnel in the world, including a stretch beneath the Hudson River. The water then moves to the West Branch and Kensico Reservoirs for further settling, mixes at Kensico with Catskill System waters, and continues to Hillview Reservoir in Yonkers at the city's northern boundary before entering the city distribution system. The broader system developed over time with Manhattan's first well in 1677, the first reservoir in 1776, the Croton System in 1842, the Catskill System in 1915, a 1931 Supreme Court decision that cleared the way for the Delaware System, and the completion of the Cannonsville Reservoir in 1967 to complete that system. In the Catskill Region, six reservoirs, together with 13 reservoirs and lakes in Westchester and Putnam Counties east of the Hudson River, supply 1.3 billion gallons of water each day to 9 million people in New York City and its northern suburbs from a watershed whose high-quality water has been called the "Champagne of Drinking Water."
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