Across the United States are now facing this funding gap, between projected revenue and projected expenses, as they strive to maintain Water Quality and meet demand. New york is the most densely populated city in the u. S. And over 40 million tourists visit the city every year. The 1. 3 billion gallons of water required every day are delivered by a system of extraordinary scale and complex engineering. Man water is essential to the economic viability of new york city. Reliable infrastructure and Reliable Delivery of water is a must. You have to reinvest in the infrastructure every single minute to keep it current. Hurwitz we have the stock exchange, we have the United Nations failure can have a dramatic impact on the nation, and even internationally. So theres a really keen awareness that you always have to be fixing the system. Things corrode, they rust. They get to where you turn them on and nothing happens. But it is so totally used in every nook and cranny, that making any accommod
The end of useful life. Woman what to do . Wssc is working on that costly problem right now. Brunhart its not only true here, but its true throughout our nation. Narrator across the United States, cities and towns are facing the challenge of aging and outdated Drinking Water, wastewater, and stormWater Infrastructure. Its a national problem. But it needs to be approached system by system. Allbee lets frame the systems in terms of the proper context. We have around 16,000 wastewater systems. We dont have a single wastewater system we have 16,000 of them. We have about 54,000 Drinking Water systems. Narrator issues facing new york city are very different from those in los angeles. And challenges facing small towns are very different from those in metropolitan areas. Man we have to have water supply for health purposes, for fire protection, and the economy. Without it, things simply cant exist. Woman we have good health in this country, in part, because we have clean water. And we shouldn
But the mechanical equipment within them will not. Engineers in the 1950s discovered rust on the tunnels valves. There were concerns that if they closed the valves for tunnel inspections, they may never open again, leaving new york city without water. So they chose to keep them open. As a result, there has not been significant inspection, maintenance, or repair of the tunnels in decades. No one knows their current condition. Hurwitz currently, city tunnel 1 and city Tunnel Number 2 would be feeding each half of the city. So youd lose half the city if you didnt have a replacement. Narrator without half of its water supply, the city would shut down. For nearly 40 years, new york has been in the process of constructing a solution. Man this project is water Tunnel Number 3. We started on this project in 1969. Im a sandhog. Ive been a sandhog for 37 years. Narrator sandhogs are the men of local 147, who work deep below the city. They began building the infrastructure of new york in 1872. Fr
Creating a combined sewer overflow, or cso. There are over 700 communities in the United States with combined sewer systems. The other approach was to separate wastewater from stormwater, using two pipe networks. This separate system simply carries the stormwater away from the city. But even separate systems pollute the watershed. In developed areas, concrete and other impervious services prevent water from naturally soaking into the land. As the rainwater moves over the roads and concrete expanse, it captures trash and invisible chemicals, sending them straight to the nearest waterway untreated. When engineers first designed americas Water Infrastructure the Drinking Water, wastewater, and stormwater systems they were some of the most advanced in the world. But the infrastructure is growing old. And population growth and development, particularly in urban areas, have made it difficult for original system designs to meet modern Health Standards and reliably satisfy demand. Man our wate
Failure can have a dramatic impact on the nation, and even internationally. So theres a really keen awareness that you always have to be fixing the system. Things corrode, they rust. They get to where you turn them on and nothing happens. But it is so totally used in every nook and cranny, that making any accommodation to shut it down, to do something to it, is very difficult. Narrator two Massive Underground tunnels, called simply tunnel 1 and tunnel 2, provide most of the citys water supply. They run hundreds of feet below manhattan, far deeper than the subways. Built at the beginning of the 20th century, they are concretelined and bored through solid rock. They could last centuries. But the mechanical equipment within them will not. Engineers in the 1950s discovered rust on the tunnels valves. There were concerns that if they closed the valves for tunnel inspections, they may never open again, leaving new york city without water. So they chose to keep them open. As a result, there h