New York City Water Tunnel No. 3
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
  |
This article or section contains information about planned or expected future infrastructure. It may contain information of a speculative nature and the content may change dramatically as the construction and/or completion of the infrastructure approaches, and more information becomes available on it. |
New York City Water Tunnel No. 3 is the largest capital construction project in New York City's history. It is being constructed by the New York City Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), and is intended to provide the City with a critical third connection to its upstate NY water supply system. The tunnel will eventually be more than 24 miles long. Construction on the tunnel began in 1970 and is expected to be completed in 2021.
Contents |
[edit] Stage One
The activated portion of Tunnel No. 3, was tunneled through bedrock between 250 to 800 feet underground. It runs for 13 miles and begins at Hillview Reservoir in Yonkers, New York. It extends across Central Park until about 5th Avenue and 78th Street and stretches eastward under the East River and Roosevelt Island into Astoria, Queens. The stage 1 tunnel is 24-feet in diameter and is concrete lined. The tunnel is reduced in diameter to 20 feet, then the water will rise from the tunnel, through 14 supply shafts that will supply the existing distribution system.
Dr. Gareth M. Evans on SPG Media Limited's www.water-technology.net writes: Three of the four unique subsurface valve chambers have already been built to allow the connection of future stages of the tunnel without removing the water or taking any other stage of the tunnel out of service. The three valve chambers are located in the Bronx at Van Cortlandt Park (Shaft 2B), Manhattan at Central Park (Shaft 13B) and Roosevelt Island (Shaft 15B). Each valve chamber contains a series of 96-inch diameter conduits with valves and flow meters to direct, control and measure the flow of water in sections of the tunnel. Stage 2 will provide water to the lower west side of Manhattan and sections of Queens, Brooklyn and Staten Island. More importantly, Stages 1 and 2 will provide bypass capability of City Tunnels No. 1 or 2, which is essential to maintaining the entire water supply system and avoiding problems. Stages 1 and 2 are solely devoted to improving the distribution capability of the system and will not provide any additional supply of water.
[edit] Stage Two
The Brooklyn and Queens, New York section has sections being built at the same time. The five-and-a-half mile Brooklyn section begins in Red Hook, Brooklyn and runs through the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Park Slope, Brooklyn, Bedford-Stuyvesant and Bushwick, Brooklyn to Maspeth, Queens. The Brooklyn section will connect with the Richmond Tunnel now providing water to Staten Island. From Maspeth, the Queens section will run five miles through the Queens communities of Woodside and Astoria. The Brooklyn section will be 16-feet in diameter and the Queens section will be 20-feet in diameter.
The Manhattan section will be 10 feet in diameter and run for 9 miles. It will begin at the Stage 1 valve chamber in Central Park and run south along the west side of Manhattan and curve around the southern end of the island and come partially up the lower east side. A spur of the Manhattan tunnel begins on the west side at approximately 34th Street, goes to the east side and then turns north under Second Avenue to about 59th Street.
[edit] Stage Three
What used to be called Stage 3 is now being referred to as a separate project, the "Kensico-City Tunnel." It will be 24 feet in diameter, running from the Kensico Reservoir in Westchester to the Van Cortland Valve Chamber complex in the Bronx.
[edit] Stage Four
What used to be called Stage Four may now never be built. It would connect the Kensico-City Tunnel directly to the Brooklyn-Queens segment of Tunnel No. 3 by tunneling under the East River near the Long Island Sound.
[edit] Valve chambers
The largest of the valve chambers is the Van Cortlandt Park complex. It is built 250 feet below the park surface. When completed it will control the flow of water from the Catskill and Delaware systems. These systems provide 90% of the city's current drinking water. The Van Cortlandt Park Valve Chamber is 620 feet long, and 43 feet wide and 41 feet high. The complex has nine vertical shafts; and two manifolds. Each manifold is 560 feet long and 24 feet in diameter.
[edit] Deaths
Since 1970, when construction on the tunnel began, 24 people have died in construction-related accidents.
[edit] Tunnels
- New York City Water Tunnel No. 1 completed 1917
- New York City Water Tunnel No. 2 completed 1936
- New York City Water Tunnel No. 3 began 1970, estimated completion in 2021
[edit] External links and references
- Animated Plan, Cut Away Diagram, Plan Stage Breakdown & QuickTime VR of Tunnel
- An overview of the project — an in-depth look at the project, with details on the various stages of construction and the tools used.
