The Simple Genius of NYC’s Water Supply System
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Writing by Sam Denby and Tristan Purdy
Editing by Alexander Williard
Animation led by Josh Sherrington
Sound by Graham Haerther
Thumbnail by Simon Buckmaster
these videos never cease to interest me, as someone who isn’t really that much of a nerd. Sam never fails to make me interested in whatever topic. Thank you Sam!
@Greasaholic, yeah lol. Welcome to the club
@MrG facts I enjoy it so🤝
“nerd” just the fact you say that makes you sound like a nerd. these videos are just cool to watch bc their intresting and u can learn new things from it, nothing nerdy bout it
Nerd
You’re likely a bit of a nerd if you’re watching tbh.
I’m a pilot and last week I flew into White Plains, right over the Kensico Reservoir for Runway 16. It was a gorgeous summer evening and all I could imagine was paddle boarding on the beautiful lake I was flying over. I noticed that there was no traffic on the water and no houses on the shore which seemed strange given the lake’s proximity to a huge population center. Later I figured it had to be part of the city’s water supply to enjoy such a lack of disturbance and I got to thinking about what goes into keeping NYC hydrated. This video had perfect timing to my logistical ponderings. Thanks for some more outstanding material.
@Car Guy 🌝 at least 1500 people within 16 hours enjoyed their pilot story. Your comment, not so much. 🤷
@Reebs Maybe they did mean plain? 🤷Maybe they were tired and wanted to lie down in the grass? 😋
@gpaull2 🌝🌝😆😆😆
Flown into HPN many times at AirWis
@Car Guy 🌝 – How do you know someone is a pilot?
They’ll tell you. 🙄
Back when I did an architectural thesis focusing on the pollution in the hudson river, you touched on basically everything for the the NYC water supply, but a topic idea for the future could be looking at combined sewer systems and seperate sewer systems. The hudson river still has raw sewage dumped into it during heavy rainstorms due to the existing combined sewer systems in the towns and villages along the hudson river. Potential future video idea for ya
Dude that’s what I was gonna say! Combined Sewers are wack and while they may have worked in the past, they’re really dangerous to continue operating today.
@Requiem for a Meme ive always wondered why the city does not just pull off the bandaid and fill the canal in, I mean is it actually used for anything other than throw away jokes about pollution and three eyed Simpsons fish? that is does anything along it still depend on it for moving stuff on barges.
It’s still weird to me that Gowanus (our very own Super Fun site) is labeled basically as “South South Slope” now-a-days, and is full of strollers competing with bicycles for parking space.
That would be a great vid. I’m in Pittsburgh and we are in the same boat, probably about 4 billion to fix. I wonder what the nyc cso fix would cost.
its interesting that the next longest tunnel is for the Helsinki water supply which is a substantially smaller city and the tunnel is only about 10% shorter 😀 though the bedrock there is very stable so probably more afordable
When he said the physics of siphons was not fully understood, I had to remind myself that this was not Half as Interesting
@bungalow bill I have honestly always thought it was once the fluid got moving it was pulling a vacuum in the line, And since a tube is sealed the only source for filling the void is more water. I make this opinion and support it by the fact that pipes for which the faucet can potentially cause backflow to the water lines of the building you have these little caps called a vacuum breaker, if water tries to flow backwards like it would with a siphon the little valve opens breaking the siphon.
I mean, they are pretty well understood. It’s like my old roommate saying “We don’t know how bicycles work!?” Like, yes we do, but there are just some minor physics contributing to the problem that are affecting it in a way not fully anticipated.
Jeez I thought that statement was just a joke but apparently not. The physics of siphons is not fully understood, how does interesting.
@bungalow bill no I definitely don’t think he is wrong, but for some reason it felt like something that that wacky guy at HAI would say before cracking a joke about Applebee’s
Is he really wrong, though? The following is an excerpt from the 2015 paper ‘The height limit of a siphon’, published in Nature Scientific Reports:
“Although the siphon has been used since ancient times, the means of operation has been a matter of controversy [CITATIONS]. Two competing models have been put forward, one in which siphons are considered to operate through gravity and atmospheric pressure and another in which gravity and liquid cohesion are invoked.”
So while I don’t think it was really necessary to discuss the why at all in the context of this video, and enough to just mention how it works, I think the phrasing used in the video seems fine since it would be unreasonable to go into more detail.
Man i wish this Half as Interesting guy made videos of this quality. You have no competition from him!
@DrearyPlane8 man why you have to be like that? Stabbing me right in the heart? But you have 1 brick and airplanes can have multiple engines. What now ?
@Eric W. oh shit oh fuck
@DrearyPlane8 that destroys the engine but not the whole plane. It can probably land on one engine and just be repaired. The brick on the other hand……..
@david contreras whooosh
As a water utility worker I find this fascinating. The idea of not needing to filter surface water is truly unique. We actually filter ours twice. The first stage is mechanical particle removal and the second is adsorption of organic material
@Mari Onette are you serious? NYC actually has a reliable water supply that is tasty, of such a good quality it doesn’t need filtration. If you watched the video and actually paid attention, you’ll find the lengths they went to to make sure the water is safe. Maybe you just want to whine because it is NYC
When you set your standards low enough, anything is possible.
@Adrian Lilholm from my understanding it also depends on how clean the pipes are. and unchlorinated tap water does definitely exist (such as in the netherlands)
Does the filtering eliminate the need for chlorine, Or do you also add chlorine to the water?
another water worker here also and agreed
Its really a modern engineering marvel to see such a mega design that serves millions even now. Wish we had similar level of foresight now for our modern problems that could serve future generations.
@Gills1776 people literally can’t think more than 2 years ahead now… And that’s actually being generous. People used to think DECADES ahead.
We are trying but there’s a lot more pushback now after acknowledging our impact on native ecosystems and how that can affect farming fishing scenery and wildlife.
Thinking about New York going green that would be some SCALE
It does seem that quite tragically, most modern people have lost the perspective of history for their actions.
I’m actually hoping when they finally bring tunnel 1 offline we get some photos of what it looks like on the inside. No one’s been in there for over 100 years, they found out in the 50’s the sectioning valves were inoperable, so they couldn’t even shut sections off for maintenance. As it is right now, if a major failure happened in tunnel 1 or 2 it would be a huge disaster for the city, the capacity just isn’t there until tunnel 3 is fully operational.
Probably find a river of pink slime that reacts to emotions.
I remember seeing somewhere that professionals do scuba dive in the tunnels for inspection or something.
More Water-Shortage-Coverage:
-Some More News
-Second Thought
Were running out of Water and The Water Wars are Coming are Videotitles that
maybe should make us all watch the videos.
Currently reading Empire of Water by David Soll which focuses on the history of NYC’s water supply. This presentation is just as informative and the images are something that books just can’t replicate. Great work!
I never would have thought “the history of NYC’s water supply” is a topic I’d be interested in reading about, but after watching this video I’m inclined to check out that book