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New York City Water Tunnel No. 3 is a water-supply tunnel forming part of the
New York City water supply system A combination of aqueducts, reservoirs, and tunnels supplies fresh water to New York City. With three major water systems ( Croton, Catskill, and Delaware) stretching up to away from the city, its water supply system is one of the most exte ...
. It is being built by the
New York City Department of Environmental Protection The New York City Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) is the department of the government of New York City that manages the city's water supply and works to reduce air, noise, and hazardous materials pollution. Under a 1.3 billion do ...
to provide New York City with a third connection to its upstate water supply. Water Tunnel No. 3 is the largest capital construction project in New York City history. The tunnel will be more than long, travel below street level in sections, and will cost over $6 billion. Construction began in 1970 and is expected to not be completed until at least 2026. The tunnel will serve as a backup to Water Tunnel No. 1, completed in 1917, and Water Tunnel No. 2, completed in 1936.


Stages


One

The project was authorized in 1954 and imagined as "the greatest nondefense construction project in the history of Western Civilization". The city determined that it needed a third water tunnel so that Tunnels 1 and 2 could be closed for inspection and repairs. Stage One construction of Tunnel 3 began in 1970 and completed in 1993. This portion was put into service in 1998 and cost about $1 billion. This first section was bored through bedrock between underground, using drilling and blasting techniques. Section one is long and starts at
Hillview Reservoir The Hillview Reservoir is a storage reservoir in southeastern Yonkers, New York. It was built within a six-year period from 1909–1915 by the New York City Board of Water Supply to receive water from the newly constructed Catskill Aqueduct, w ...
in
Yonkers, New York Yonkers () is a city in Westchester County, New York, United States. Developed along the Hudson River, it is the third most populous city in the state of New York, after New York City and Buffalo. The population of Yonkers was 211,569 as en ...
then crosses under
Central Park Central Park is an urban park in New York City located between the Upper West and Upper East Sides of Manhattan. It is the fifth-largest park in the city, covering . It is the most visited urban park in the United States, with an estimated ...
in
Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
, to reach
Fifth Avenue Fifth Avenue is a major and prominent thoroughfare in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It stretches north from Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village to West 143rd Street in Harlem. It is one of the most expensive shopping ...
at 78th Street. From there it runs under the
East River The East River is a saltwater tidal estuary in New York City. The waterway, which is actually not a river despite its name, connects Upper New York Bay on its south end to Long Island Sound on its north end. It separates the borough of Quee ...
and
Roosevelt Island Roosevelt Island is an island in New York City's East River, within the borough of Manhattan. It lies between Manhattan Island to the west, and the borough of Queens, on Long Island, to the east. Running from the equivalent of East 46th to ...
into
Astoria, Queens Astoria is a neighborhood in the western portion of the New York City borough of Queens. Astoria is bounded by the East River and is adjacent to three other Queens neighborhoods: Long Island City to the southwest, Sunnyside to the southeas ...
. It is a concrete-lined tunnel that is in diameter and reduces to in diameter before connecting to 14 vertical shafts.


Two

Stage Two was built using
tunnel boring machine A tunnel boring machine (TBM), also known as a "mole", is a machine used to excavate tunnels with a circular cross section through a variety of soil and rock strata. They may also be used for microtunneling. They can be designed to bore thro ...
s and comprises two sections. The
Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
and
Queens Queens is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located on Long Island, it is the largest New York City borough by area. It is bordered by the borough of Brooklyn at the western tip of Long ...
section runs and begins in Red Hook, Brooklyn, where it connects to the Richmond Tunnel for
Staten Island Staten Island ( ) is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City, coextensive with Richmond County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. Located in the city's southwest portion, the borough is separated from New Jersey b ...
. It passes through
Park Slope Park Slope is a neighborhood in northwestern Brooklyn, New York City, within the area once known as South Brooklyn. Park Slope is roughly bounded by Prospect Park and Prospect Park West to the east, Fourth Avenue to the west, Flatbush A ...
, Bedford-Stuyvesant, and
Bushwick Bushwick is a neighborhood in the northern part of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. It is bounded by the neighborhood of Ridgewood, Queens, to the northeast; Williamsburg to the northwest; East New York and the cemeteries of Highland Par ...
before reaching Maspeth, Queens. From Maspeth it runs through
Woodside Woodside may refer to: Places and buildings Australia * Woodside, South Australia, a town * Woodside, Victoria, a town Canada * Woodside National Historic Site, the boyhood home of William Lyon Mackenzie King *Woodside, Nova Scotia, a neighbo ...
and Astoria, where it connects to the end of the Stage One section. The Brooklyn section is in diameter, and the Queens section is .water-technology.net The Manhattan section is in diameter and runs for . It begins at a
valve chamber A valve is a device or natural object that regulates, directs or controls the flow of a fluid (gases, liquids, fluidized solids, or slurries) by opening, closing, or partially obstructing various passageways. Valves are technically fittings ...
in Central Park, runs south along the west side of Manhattan, and curves around the southern end of the island to come partway through 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. The tunnel itself was completed in 2008, and after the construction of
riser shaft Riser may refer to: Engineering * Stair riser, the vertical elements in a set of stairs * Riser, another name for a theatre platform * Riser, a length of vertically oriented piping used to deliver fluid, gas, or electrical signals or power upward ...
s was completed, the tunnel opened in 2013.


Three

What used to be called Stage Three is now being referred to as a separate project, the "Kensico–City Tunnel". It will be in diameter, running from the
Kensico Reservoir The Kensico Reservoir is a reservoir spanning the towns of Armonk (North Castle) and Valhalla ( Mount Pleasant), New York, located 3 miles (5 km) north of White Plains. It was formed by the original earth and gravel Kensico Dam constructed in 18 ...
in Westchester to the Van Cortlandt Valve Chamber complex in the Bronx.


Four

Stage Four is a proposed tunnel that would start at the
Hillview Reservoir The Hillview Reservoir is a storage reservoir in southeastern Yonkers, New York. It was built within a six-year period from 1909–1915 by the New York City Board of Water Supply to receive water from the newly constructed Catskill Aqueduct, w ...
, pass through the eastern Bronx and then through Queens, where it would eventually meet the Stage Two section.


Valve chambers

The largest valve chamber is in
Van Cortlandt Park Van Cortlandt Park is a park located in the borough of the Bronx in New York City. Owned by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, it is managed with assistance from the Van Cortlandt Park Alliance. The park, the city's third-lar ...
. It is built below the park surface. It controls the flow of water from the city's Catskill and
Delaware Delaware ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Maryland to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and New Jersey and the Atlantic Ocean to its east. The state takes its name from the adjacent ...
systems. These systems provide 90 percent of the city's current drinking water. The Van Cortlandt Park Valve Chamber is long, wide and high. The complex has nine vertical shafts; and two
manifolds In mathematics, a manifold is a topological space that locally resembles Euclidean space near each point. More precisely, an n-dimensional manifold, or ''n-manifold'' for short, is a topological space with the property that each point has a ne ...
. Each manifold is long and in diameter and is currently in operation. Additional, though smaller, valve chambers are in use under Central Park at 79th Street, under Roosevelt Island, and in Jackson Heights.


Deaths

Since 1970, when construction on the tunnel began, twenty-four people have died in construction-related accidents. The deaths have included twenty-three workers and a 12-year-old boy, Don-re Carroll, who died while exploring uncapped water pipes in
the Bronx The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New ...
. No deaths have occurred since 1997.


Progress

In 2002, New York City mayor
Michael Bloomberg Michael Rubens Bloomberg (born February 14, 1942) is an American businessman, politician, philanthropist, and author. He is the majority owner, co-founder and CEO of Bloomberg L.P. He was Mayor of New York City from 2002 to 2013, and was a c ...
made completion of the tunnel a priority, and set a goal date of 2021. Commissioner Christopher O. Ward helped move this project along for the Mayor. A ''New York Times'' report in 2016 stated that mayor
Bill de Blasio Bill de Blasio (; born Warren Wilhelm Jr., May 8, 1961; later Warren de Blasio-Wilhelm) is an American politician who served as the 109th mayor of New York City from 2014 to 2021. A member of the Democratic Party, he held the office of New Y ...
was postponing completion of the project indefinitely, but he subsequently stated that this was a miscommunication between his press office and the ''Times'', and that the completion date was actually being pushed up to 2020.


In popular culture

* Scenes from the 1995 film ''
Die Hard with a Vengeance ''Die Hard with a Vengeance'' is a 1995 American action thriller film directed by John McTiernan (who directed the first installment). It was written by Jonathan Hensleigh, based on the screenplay ''Simon Says'' by Hensleigh and on the chara ...
'' were filmed in Tunnel No. 3. * ''Payback'', a 1997 novel by Thomas Kelly, includes "the twenty-three men who have died building New York City Water Tunnel Number Three" among those to whom it is dedicated. Billy Adare, one of the principal characters, is a
sandhog Sandhog is the slang term given to urban miners and construction workers who work underground on a variety of excavation projects in New York City, and later other cities. Generally these projects involve tunneling, caisson excavation, road bui ...
working on the tunnel whose father was killed in the early stages of its construction. ''Payback'' was re-released in 2008 with the new title ''Sandhogs''. * The ''
CSI: NY ''CSI: NY'' (''Crime Scene Investigation: New York'', stylized as ''CSI: NY/Crime Scene Investigation'') is an American police procedural television series that ran on CBS from September 22, 2004, to February 22, 2013, for a total of nine season ...
'' episode "A Man a Mile" deals with the death of a sandhog during construction of Water Tunnel No. 3. * In
Spider Robinson Spider Robinson (born November 24, 1948) is an American-born Canadian science fiction author. He has won a number of awards for his hard science fiction and humorous stories, including the Hugo Award 1977 and 1983, and another Hugo with his co-a ...
's novel ''
Night of Power The Qadr Night or Laylat al-Qadr ( ar, لیلة القدر), variously rendered in English as the Night of Decree, Night of Power, Night of Value, Night of Destiny, or Night of Measures, is, in Islamic belief, the night when the Quran was firs ...
'', Tunnel No. 3 is depicted as an abandoned project, taken over as the secret headquarters for a revolutionary movement. * In Linda Fairstein's 2007 novel ''Bad Blood'', Tunnel No. 3 deals with the interconnection between a homicide case and the sandhogs working in Tunnel No. 3 and other NYC tunnels for generations. * The ''
Nova A nova (plural novae or novas) is a transient astronomical event that causes the sudden appearance of a bright, apparently "new" star (hence the name "nova", which is Latin for "new") that slowly fades over weeks or months. Causes of the dramat ...
'' episode "The Hidden City" (October 3, 1989) included a segment on the construction of the tunnel. * Scenes of the final episode of season 4 of ''
The Strain ''The Strain'' is a 2009 vampire horror novel by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan. It is the first installment in ''The Strain Trilogy'', and was followed by '' The Fall'' (2010) and ''The Night Eternal'' (2011). Plot synopsis A Boeing 777 ...
'' were filmed in Tunnel No. 3. * In
Emily St. John Mandel Emily St. John Mandel (; born 1979) is a Canadian novelist and essayist. She has written six novels, including '' Station Eleven'' (2014) and '' The Glass Hotel'' (2020). ''Station Eleven'', which has been translated into 33 languages, has been ...
’s 2010 novel ''The Singer’s Gun'', Anton Walker is head of a small research division at an international water systems consulting firm. He was tasked with creating recommendations for providing NYC residents with drinking water in the event of catastrophic failure of Tunnel No. 1 or 2 before the completion of Tunnel No. 3.


References


External links

* John H. Betts
The Minerals of New York City
' originally published in Rocks & Minerals magazine, Volume 84, No. 3, pp. 204–252 (2009). {{DEFAULTSORT:New York City Water Tunnel No. 3 Water infrastructure of New York City Tunnels in New York City Water tunnels in the United States