The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1908-06-28
A GIGANTIC
WATER SYSTEM
New York Constructing One of
Enormous Cost and
Proportions.
advertiser Correspondence, Copyright
by Frederic ]. Haskin)

contemporaries, COpyrlgnf
by Frederic j. Haskin.l
Just now there is being conducted
in New York State a gigantic engin-
eering enterprise that is second in
magnitude only to the building of the
Panama Canal. 1t is the construction
of the Catskill Water Supply which
was begun a year ago in answer to
New York city's cry for a solution of
its big water problem, and in response
to call for 100000 gallons of fresh
water daily in addition to it's present
supply.
The work involved is so enormous as
to be almost incomprehensible to the
lay mind. Hundreds of miles of topo-
graphic surveys had to be made. IN
Vulnerable holes We're drilled into the
earth or the solid rock to determine
the best and most economical Ioca-
tions for the great reservoirs, dams
and aqueducts. Samples of soil, sand.
gravel and stone, well as of rock
from core borings, were obtained for
study and analysis. All this detail in
volved the best efforts of eminent en-
gineers. biologists, chemists, special
lists in aeration, filtration, and reser-
voir making, and of experts in the
mechanical work of reconstructing
railways and highways.
Villages, churches. schools hotels
homes, railways and highways will be
moved from the pathway of this giant
project as the judgment of the engin-
GERS DEGREES. and since a land option
ring has thriftily acquired the rights
to most of the property subject to con-
domination proceedings the amount to
be paid out of the city treasury for
land damages and water rights alone
will approximate $70,000,000, the total
claims filed already aggregating be-
tween $15.000000 and $20,000,000.
When completed New York's water
system will be the greatest ever |
undertaken by any city in the world. |
The gathering ground for the water is /
$50 miles from the City Hall and $50
from the lower end of Staten Island.
Four creeks, Esopus, Rondout, Scho-
harie and Catskill. have been levied
upon as the main sources of supply. I
The total area of the watersheds will
be over 900 square miles, and their
combined resources when fully develop
ed, will exceed SOC, 10000 gallons daily.
The water is to come from three great !.
reservoirs in the Catskills, being car
ried in aqueducts that will dive under
the Hudson at Storm King to a depth
of eco feet or more, and come up on
the other side. From there it will cross
gullies and pierce hills in three con-
Quits, and an aqueduct will then carry
1T under East River and New York
Bay to Brooklyn and Staten Island.
The main features of this giant work
are to be a principal impounding reser-
voir-the Ashokan; storage reservoir
the Keuisco: the largest filtering
plant ever built: distributing reser~
voirs and the Catsl<ill aqueduct eighty
miles long. There will be a dam 220
feet high across Esopus Creek, and
this with other dams and bikes will
form Ashokan reservoir. Besides the
waters of Esopus this reservoir will
receive those diverted from Schoharie
Greek by a ten-mile tunnel through the
and those from Catskill
Creek and adjacent small streams
through another aqueduct The Asho-
kan reservoir will be twelve miles long
and two wide, with water surface
of lU,uuU acres dtlu Capacity VI oAiV
hundred and twenty billion gallons-a
plan for conserving water as great as
that which the Emperor Constantine
realized in his Underground Palace" !
that holds Constantinople's reserve wa !
ter supply as safely now as it did fif-
teen centuries ago. =
The Catskin Aqueduct will carry the
water from Ashokan to the distributing
reservoir in Yonkers. No pumping will
he needed and from there it will be
distributed by gravity throughout d
Greater New York. This aqueduct is
large enough to accommodate an ordi-
nary railroad train with ease. The
famous adueducts of Rome pale into /
insignifcance beside it, for it will car t
~ nearly three times as much water !
daily as did the combined aqueducts {
of the Imperial City in the great period J
of the Empire when her civic improve I
,,epts had reached their zenith. When G
ever the water flows at hydiaulic grade a
the aaueduct will be constructed Of q
concrete. Where ii is necessary to