ASHOKAN GETTING $750M UPGRADE
Improvement project at NYC reservoir expected to begin in 2023, last 10 years
The 100-yearold Ashokan Reservoir in Ulster County will get $750 million in upgrades to ensure New York City’s drinking water system is ready for the next 100 years of service, the city’s Department of Environmental Protection said Thursday.
The Ashokan Century Program, due to begin around 2023 and take about 10 years to complete, is to include improvements to the reservoir’s Olivebridge dam and the intake structures that send water into the 92-mile Catskill Aqueduct, as well as to dikes, chambers and buildings. Also, the reservoir’s spillway and channel are to be reconstructed, and the dividing weir bridge that carries Reservoir Road over the water is to be replaced with a span that can accommodate bicycles and pedestrians, as well as vehicles.
Engineers will begin to design the project next year.
The improvement project was announced by Vincent Sapienza, the Department of Environmental Protection’s acting commissioner, during a Thursday morning ceremony on the reservoir’s scenic walkway.
“The work that we are unveiling today [is] the largest public works project in more than 50 years,” Sapienza said. “The work here at Ashokan is part of DEP’s continuing efforts to continually maintain and upgrade our major water
“The Ashokan Century Program heeds the advice of those who built the water supply, and it makes good on our mission to protect public health and safety long into the future.”
supply. ...
“The Ashokan Century Program heeds the advice of those who built the water supply, and it makes good on our mission to protect public health and safety long into the future,” he said.
Among others things, the project will include upgrades to equipment that allows turbid water to be impounded and clear water to flow into a separate holding basin, the acting commissioner said.
The Ashokan Reservoir, put into service in 1917, supplies New York City with about 40 percent of its drinking water. It’s a crucial piece of the sprawling but aging system that supplies water to 8.5 million city residents plus another 1 million people north of the city. The series of reservoirs and gravity-fed tunnels delivers more than 1 billion gallons of water per day.
At capacity, the Ashokan Reservoir can hold 128 billion gallons of water.
DEP Deputy Commissioner Paul Rush said the existing bridge on the reservoir’s dividing weir will be demolished when the new one is built. The current bridge recently was reopened to two lanes of traffic after more than two years of being down to just one lane due to repair work.
“After 100 years of service, that bridge certainly needs to be replaced, and over the years we’ve gotten calls from elected officials at the state and local level who have asked us to provide pedestrian access across the diving weir when it’s rebuilt,” Rush said. “The new bridge will include a bike lane and pedestrian access, which will help connect our existing walkway ... with a future rail trail to be built by Ulster County on the other side of the reservoir.”
Department of Environmental Protection spokesman Adam Bosch said the department does not yet know how the bridge work will affect traffic.
“We won’t know until the designs are completed,” he said. “They may ... be able to design the dividing weir in a way that will keep a lane available, but ... those are the sorts of things we won’t know until the design process is done.”
The building work included in the Ashokan Century Program will involve the rehabilitation of three original masonry structures at the reservoir that contain valves, gates and tunnels.