It’s easy to take infrastructure for granted. When we effortlessly get water from a tap, or flip a switch to turn on a light, we rarely think about the underlying technology. Sybil Derrible, a self described “infrastructure nerd,” explains how these systems work in his book “The Infrastructure Book: How Cities Work and Power Our Lives.”
The water courses down from upstate reservoirs as far as 125 miles from the city, receiving only a few additives, including chlorine and fluoride, along the way. Most of the city’s drinking water comes from watersheds in the Catskill Mountains and Hudson Valley and is ‘of very high quality,’ according to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation.
The water travels from those watersheds, pulled primarily by gravity, to a pair of giant underground tunnels, the younger of which is 89 years old. A third water tunnel to the city is nearing completion, at an estimated cost of $5 billion, after 55 years of construction.
Once it’s in the city, the water is distributed through a vast network of smaller pipes to residential and commercial buildings, where it is used for bathing, cooking, cleaning and flushing.
That water has been dubbed the “champagne of drinking water” after repeatedly winning taste tests against other sources in the state, the Department of Environmental Conservation said. Popular legend has it that the particular quality of the tap water is what makes the city’s bagels and pizza so distinctly tasty.