The Department of Environmental Protection announced today that they've completed work on boring and instillation of 8.5 miles of concrete liner in a new tunnel that will bring drinking water (that ideally isn't filled with aresenic) to the surface. Just in time for Drinking Water Week! The $6 billion project should be done with the Manhattan portion by 2013, but you may not have even known it was happening.
“The largest capital project ever undertaken in New York City — the construction of City Water Tunnel No. 3 — has been going on almost invisibly, hundreds of feet beneath the streets for decades,” said Environmental Protection Commissioner Cas Holloway. The project began in 1970 and the first segments running from Yonkers to Queens opened in 1998. The new tunnel will allegedly improve the City's drinking water delivery system and allow for inspections of Tunnels 1 and 2, which haven't been repaired since they were put into service, in 1917 and 1936, respectively. And fun fact: the 82,000,000 cubic feet of bedrock removed for the tunnel is enough to fill both the Empire State Building and Yankee Stadium.
