Ancient aqueduct of the modern metropolis: secrets of New York, which are better not to know

New York's water supply network is remarkably archaic. There is hardly enough pressure in it to lift water to the height of the sixth floor. At the same time, the main buildings are almost one hundred meter high skyscrapers. How does the city solve this problem today, and how did it solve it over the centuries? This was told by the author of the channel "Travel on the sofa" on the site Yandex Zen.

The modern New Yorker is used to ignoring what catches the eye of new arrivals and tourists. But many things here are archaic and do not at all fit into the image of an ultra-modern city, which has long become a familiar stereotype.

For example, the city's water supply system. “At first glance, there is nothing unusual about it. A huge nine-million-strong city quite naturally needs a huge amount of water, but just with this it constantly had problems, although it is located on the water, and is literally pierced by water arteries. But since this water is salty, not suitable for use, at the dawn of the city's history aqueducts were laid, through which drinking water is supplied to the Big Apple, ”the author writes.

But if you delve deeper into the study of this issue, it becomes clear: here they still use technologies common in the era of Ancient Rome.

The first aqueduct, the so-called Croton aqueduct, was built at the beginning of the 1837th century, in 1842-XNUMX. But there was an urgent need for it for several decades before.

The population of the city grew, gradually the fresh water sources were polluted with sewage, so that drinking water was mainly brought to the city.

A Manhattan company that had government contracts specialized in this. Although, it is worth noting that this was not at all the main type of her activity, but a formal justification for the provision of banking services. In the early years of US history, obtaining a license to open a bank was a complex procedure, to bypass which banks were often registered as companies, and this is the path taken by the Manhattan company, which eventually grew into the famous JPMorgan Chase Bank. And since water supply brought in much less profit than banking services, the company paid just enough attention to it so as not to lose the license.

This affected the quality of the water supplied by the company. “To say that the water situation was bad is to say nothing. It got to the point that drinking water had to be diluted with alcohol so that it could be relatively safe to use. Severe unsanitary conditions reigned in the city, leading to outbreaks of various diseases, of which the cholera epidemic in the early thirties is the most famous. There, then, still very inopportunely, the Great Fire occurred, aggravating all the problems and completely changing the appearance of the city. And the fathers-commanders decided to look for sources of clean water, ”the author said.

Such a source was discovered in the Croton River. Then a project was created, according to which it was supposed to block the river with a dam and send water to the city through a system of aqueducts and tunnels. Construction took five years. In 1842, everything was ready, and the water stream, having traveled 66 kilometers, went to a special reservoir. Today, the site of this reservoir is the main Public Library of New York. “This tank itself was truly an engineering achievement - it was not dug into the ground, but made in the form of a huge pool, with walls 15 meters high and seven meters thick. Moreover, it was built in the style of ancient Egyptian architecture, which seemed very attractive to the city fathers, - the author noted. - But the aqueduct was built, on the contrary, in the antique style, drawing parallels with Ancient Rome, where, as they say, similar brick structures were very common. And the Croton aqueduct, in general, was no different from them, neither in appearance nor in design. As if there weren't those millennia between eras. "

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The construction speed of all these structures was fantastic. Especially if you take into account the molding of underground iron pipes with a diameter of 2,6 meters, the need to build the dam itself and an aqueduct across the river. “Assessing the scale of the work carried out, we can safely say that the work was carried out at a pace worthy of the flourishing of industrialization, but this was only the beginning of the nineteenth century, and there were no powerful excavators or huge trucks. Only mules and horses, ”added the author.

If we compare such projects with today's ones, the numbers are impressive. “For comparison, in the city where I live, a similar project was also implemented, which ended last year. A main water conduit with a length of 36 kilometers and a capacity of 32000 cubic meters per day was built. It took six years. And the Croton aqueduct was built two centuries ago in five years, it was 66 kilometers long and supplied 340 cubic meters of water per day. Feel the difference, as they say, ”the author writes.

Despite the appearance of the Croton Aqueduct, a few years later the city again began to feel a lack of water. Therefore, in 1881, it was decided to build another dam, which made it possible to increase the water supply to a million cubic meters per day.

It was a truly ambitious project - nothing of the kind had ever been built in America, and there was not even enough specialists capable of doing such work. At that time, there were still no technologies allowing to pour a monolith from concrete, so the dam was built from masonry, and stonecutters were brought from Italy to carry out the work. Construction lasted for almost 20 years, and then for a few more years, something was completed and rebuilt. “The dam was officially opened in 1906, and the old original dam ended up at the bottom of a new reservoir on Crotone. The Croton Aqueduct is still in operation and provides about ten percent of New York's water needs, ”said the author.

So this was the second dam built in New York. However, even before the appearance of the Croton Dam, the construction of the third water conduit, the Katskil Aqueduct, was started. This project was completed in 1916, and the aqueduct reached its design capacity by 1924.

Today this aqueduct provides almost 40% of the city's water supply. “On closer inspection, it also commands only respect for its fantastic parameters. Its length is 260 kilometers, and the diameter of the gravity pipes reaches 10 meters. Moreover, in many places underground tunnels pass through mountains and rocks - the construction of such a structure was a truly outstanding engineering task, completed in a very short time. Looking at some old photographs, you are really amazed at how people of that time could do all this work, ”the author writes.

But even this was not enough to provide New Yorkers with water in full.

So after a couple of decades, in 1945, another aqueduct had to be built - the Delaware. Through it, water from the Delaware River in the western part of the Castkil Mountains comes to New York. For a long time, it provided almost half of all city water supply. “This is the world's largest continuous tunnel, 137 kilometers long. It was created by drilling and blasting hard rocks. The aqueduct works incredibly efficiently - 95 percent of the total volume of water is supplied independently, by gravity, "the author specified.

And already in the 1950s of the twentieth century, the New York authorities started thinking about the Third Tunnel. It was assumed that he would finally be able to completely solve all the problems of the city's water supply. “This is one of the most ambitious construction projects in history aimed at improving the infrastructure of a metropolis,” the author noted.

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The construction plan was drawn up and approved in 1954, at the same time engineering calculations were carried out. However, the construction of the huge tunnel started only in 1970. “Economic turmoil and crises did not allow the project to be completed, again and again postponing construction indefinitely. It took 43 years to commission the second stage of the Third Tunnel. The tunnel runs at a depth of 150 meters. There was work going on, invisible to the eyes of the townspeople and stretching for decades. The final length of the tunnel will be almost 100 kilometers, width - up to 4 meters, ”the author said.

But despite the astounding manufacturability of all these conduits, New York's water supply network remains surprisingly archaic. “The pressure in it is hardly enough to raise water to the height of the sixth floor, while the main buildings are almost one hundred meter high skyscrapers. And each of these buildings itself solves the problem of water supply, - the author noted. - For this, storage tanks are located on almost every house in New York - classic water towers. Moreover, most of them are completely ancient, wooden, assembled using the same technologies as a hundred and one hundred and fifty years ago. "

Today, 10 to 20 thousand water towers have been installed on the roofs of houses. Nobody knows their exact number. There are only two companies in New York that build and install them. “Both of them were founded more than a century ago, and passed down from generation to generation, keeping the secrets of their craft. Like those old craftsmen, they assemble these towers from planks, mostly with hand tools, and do not use any lubricants or glue to make them airtight. Yes, they are not sealed at first! Once completed, these towers allow water to flow through all joints. But soon the tree swells from moisture, and the barrel of the tower clogs itself, ”the author said.

Such structures look outdated, perhaps because the wood from which they are made has not been treated with anything - so as not to pollute the drinking water with chemistry. “Therefore, the water towers instantly turn gray to the shades of abandoned barns, which is why many consider them to be forgotten remnants of the past. People often don’t even think that these barrels are sources of water in their homes. Barrels live for about thirty years, later requiring a complete reconstruction or replacement, but everyone is satisfied with this situation, ”the author noted.

Naturally, such barrels can be replaced with iron ones, but they are much more expensive both in assembly and installation, and in operation. Unlike wooden barrels, they require heating to keep the water from freezing.

“It is noteworthy that New York is practically the only city in America in which these towers are so widespread. All other large cities were able to build pipelines with more powerful pressure, and only the City of the Big Apple continues to use the technology of which for well over one hundred and fifty years, "the author summed up.