Rondout Reservoir is part of New York City's water supply network. It is located 75 miles (120 km) northwest of the city in the

Catskill Mountains The Catskill Mountains, also known as the Catskills, are a physiographic province of the larger Appalachian Mountains, located in southeastern New York. As a cultural and geographic region, the Catskills are generally defined as those areas cl ...

, near the southern end of

Catskill Park The Catskill Park is in the Catskill Mountains in New York in the United States. It consists of of land inside a Blue Line in four counties: Delaware, Greene, Sullivan, and Ulster. As of 2005, or 41 percent of the land within, is owned by ...

, split between the

towns A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world. Origin and use The word "town" shares an or ...

of Wawarsing in

Ulster County Ulster County is a county in the U.S. state of New York. It is situated along the Hudson River. As of the 2020 census, the population was 181,851. The county seat is Kingston. The county is named after the Irish province of Ulster. History ...

and Neversink in Sullivan County. It is the central collection point for the city's Delaware System, which provides half its daily consumption.

History

The reservoir was made possible by the construction of Merriman Dam along

Rondout Creek Rondout Creek is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed October 3, 2011 tributary of the Hudson River in Ulster and Sullivan counties, New York, United States. It rises on Rock ...

. Construction began in 1937 and ended in 1954, three years after the reservoir began delivering water. It would be the first of four built by the city to satisfy its growing demand in the years after

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

. Three villages – Lackawack, Montela and Eureka – were

condemned Condemned or The Condemned may refer to: Legal * Persons awaiting execution * A condemned property, or condemned building, by a local authority, usually for public health or safety reasons * A condemned property seized by power of eminent domain ...

and flooded in the process. The small settlement of Grahamsville remains in existence just west of the reservoir. In 1998, the city's Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) issued an advisoryNew York City Department of Environmental Protection; September 9, 1998
Fish Consumption Advisory for Rondout Reservoir
retrieved November 17, 1998. warning against eating more than one reservoir-caught smallmouth bass per month after mercury levels of 1.3

part per million In science and engineering, the parts-per notation is a set of pseudo-units to describe small values of miscellaneous dimensionless quantities, e.g. mole fraction or mass fraction. Since these fractions are quantity-per-quantity measures, they ...

(ppm), slightly above the federal standard of 1.0 ppm, were confirmed in three caught in the reservoir. Since there is no industry in the reservoir's vast watershed, this contamination is believed to be the result of

acid rain Acid rain is rain or any other form of precipitation that is unusually acidic, meaning that it has elevated levels of hydrogen ions (low pH). Most water, including drinking water, has a neutral pH that exists between 6.5 and 8.5, but ac ...

from

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when ...

-fired

power plant A power station, also referred to as a power plant and sometimes generating station or generating plant, is an industrial facility for the generation of electric power. Power stations are generally connected to an electrical grid. Many ...

s in the

Midwest The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four Census Bureau Region, census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of ...

Forged dam inspections controversy

In 2006, after residents raised concerns regarding the soundness of both Merriman and Neversink dams following emergency repairs to Schoharie Dam, a local newspaper, the ''

Times Herald-Record The ''Times Herald-Record'', often referred to as ''The Record'' or ''Middletown Record'' in its coverage area, is a daily newspaper published in Middletown, New York, covering the northwest suburbs of New York City. It covers Orange, Sulliva ...

'', obtained copies of weekly visual

inspection An inspection is, most generally, an organized examination or formal evaluation exercise. In engineering activities inspection involves the measurements, tests, and gauges applied to certain characteristics in regard to an object or activity. ...

reports for both and found that the

handwriting Handwriting is the writing done with a writing instrument, such as a pen or pencil, in the hand. Handwriting includes both printing and cursive styles and is separate from formal calligraphy or typeface. Because each person's handwriting is u ...

and information relating to the appearance of the dams on weekly reports compiled by inspector Ronald Hewlett and initialed by section engineer Russell Betters over a three-year period were virtually identical, suggesting they had been routinely

photocopied A photocopier (also called copier or copy machine, and formerly Xerox machine, the generic trademark) is a machine that makes copies of documents and other visual images onto paper or plastic film quickly and cheaply. Most modern photocopier ...

.Bruno, Greg and Gardner, Jessica; January 17, 2006
Phony dam reports: Doubts raised on safety of NYC dams here
''

''; retrieved October 26, 2006. The two were later suspended.Bruno and Gardner; February 10, 2006
Employees suspended
''Times Herald Record''; retrieved November 17, 2006.

Statistics

Rondout Reservoir is a single basin 6.5 miles (9.7 km) long,
at NYCDEP site; retrieved November 17, 2006. 2,052 acres (8.2 km²) in area and reaches a maximum depth of 175 feet (53.3 m) near the dam. Mean depth is 73.8 feet (22.4 m). Elevation is 840 feet (256 m) above sea level. It holds , which comes not only from the reservoir's own 95 square-mile (247 km²)

watershed Watershed is a hydrological term, which has been adopted in other fields in a more or less figurative sense. It may refer to: Hydrology * Drainage divide, the line that separates neighbouring drainage basins * Drainage basin, called a "watershe ...

but from Cannonsville, Neversink, and Pepacton reservoirs via the

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 ...

and Neversink tunnels as well. Since those three are in the

Delaware River The Delaware River is a major river in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. From the meeting of its branches in Hancock, New York, the river flows for along the borders of New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware, before ...

watershed, Rondout is considered by the city's Department of Environmental Protection to be part of the Delaware system despite being firmly within the

Hudson River The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between Ne ...

watershed itself. Combined, the four reservoirs account for 1,012 square miles (2,631.2 km²) of watershed and of capacity, of which goes to the city daily — 50% of the entire system's capacity. All this water is fed from the Rondout to

West Branch Reservoir The West Branch Reservoir is a reservoir in the New York City water supply system. Formed by impounding the upper reaches of the West Branch of the Croton River, it is located in the Putnam County, New York, towns of Kent, and Carmel, about ...

in Putnam County via the

Delaware Aqueduct The Delaware Aqueduct is an aqueduct in the New York City water supply system. It takes water from the Rondout, Cannonsville, Neversink, and Pepacton reservoirs on the west bank of the Hudson River through the Chelsea Pump Station, then into ...

, the world's longest continuous tunnel at 85 miles (136 km).

Access and recreational use

Rondout is easy to reach via road as routes 55 and 55A form a loop around it. However, access to the actual reservoir is tightly restricted and has been even more so since the

September 11, 2001 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commer ...

forced an increase in security.

Fishing Fishing is the activity of trying to catch fish. Fish are often caught as wildlife from the natural environment, but may also be caught from fish stocking, stocked bodies of water such as fish pond, ponds, canals, park wetlands and reservoirs. ...

is permitted in season with a DEP-issued permit in addition to the appropriate New York state license, and the reservoir is known, as are most Catskill fishing areas, for its

trout Trout are species of freshwater fish belonging to the genera '' Oncorhynchus'', '' Salmo'' and '' Salvelinus'', all of the subfamily Salmoninae of the family Salmonidae. The word ''trout'' is also used as part of the name of some non-salm ...

. However

boat A boat is a watercraft of a large range of types and sizes, but generally smaller than a ship, which is distinguished by its larger size, shape, cargo or passenger capacity, or its ability to carry boats. Small boats are typically found on i ...

s are not allowed to leave the reservoir for environmental reasons and must be stored near it year round.

Hunters Hunting is the human activity, human practice of seeking, pursuing, capturing, or killing wildlife or feral animals. The most common reasons for humans to hunt are to harvest food (i.e. meat) and useful animal products (fur/hide (skin), hide, ...

with valid city and state permits may also use the lands around the reservoir where hunting is permitted during the season. Beyond those, however, no recreational use of the reservoir is permitted. While the land is not fenced off, the area is regularly patrolled by uniformed DEP police.

References

External links