The Critical Role of NY’s Watersheds

By Peter Aronson

Providing clean drinking water for New York State’s 19 million residents is of paramount concern for New York state officials.

It is a complex process, given that 95 percent of all New Yorkers receive their drinking water from almost 9,000 different public water systems in the state.

This ranges from the smallest towns to the largest cities and requires complex water filtration systems, miles and miles of pipe and aqueduct systems in virtually every locale, requiring daily testing along the way.

For example, New York City’s 8.3 million residents receive their water (one billion gallons daily) from the largest public water system in the country, comprising 19 reservoirs and three controlled lakes spread across a nearly 2,000-square-mile watershed. The watershed is located upstate in portions of the Hudson Valley and Catskill Mountains that are as far as 125 miles north of the City. This system consists of three individual water supplies: The Catskill/Delaware Water Supply System, located in Delaware, Greene, Schoharie, Sullivan and Ulster counties; The Croton Water Supply System, located in Putnam, Westchester and Dutchess counties; and the Groundwater Supply System in southeastern Queens. (For a map, click here.)

[Read more about NYLCV/EF’s work with the Friends of the Upper Delaware River coalition.]

This system also provides water to the more than one million people living in Westchester, Putnam, Orange and Ulster counties.

In the city alone, the drinking water is tested hundreds of times a day, 365 days a year, according to the NYC Department of Environmental Protection. Samples are collected from reservoirs, aqueducts, treatment facilities and 1,000 street-side sampling stations throughout the five boroughs to make sure the water coming out of the tap is continuously safe to drink.

This kind of monitoring, at various levels, goes on across the state.

Most New Yorkers receive their drinking water from two broad categories: ground water, a source of water taken from beneath the earth’s surface, usually an aquifer, provides drinking water to approximately 4.7 million New Yorkers; About 12.5 million residents of the state, including those in New York City, get their water from surface water, a source of water above ground and open to the atmosphere.

Residents of Albany get their drinking water from the Alcove and Basic Creek Reservoirs: residents of Buffalo from Lake Erie; Syracuse from Skaneateles Lake, one of the Finger Lakes located approximately 20 miles southwest of the city; and Rochester from Hemlock and Canadice Lakes, with supplementary water from Lake Ontario. 

Across the state, 36 counties and New York City have direct oversight of the public drinking water. In the other 21 counties in the state, water systems are regulated by nine state Health Department district offices.

Annual water quality reports are required from every community water system. For those serving more than 100,000 people, the reports must be posted online and can be found here. For those from smaller communities, contact your local health department, NY State Department of Health District Office or public water supplier.  

For an overview of information regarding New York State’s drinking water, see https://www.health.ny.gov/environmental/water/drinking/facts_figures.htm. For more specific details see https://www.health.ny.gov/environmental/water/drinking/faq_def.htm. For info about protecting NY state’s drinking water, see https://www.health.ny.gov/environmental/water/drinking/drinkingwaterprogram.htm.

Peter Aronson, a volunteer writer at the New York League of Conservation Voters since September 2022, is a former journalist and retired attorney. He is the author of Mandalay Hawk’s Dilemma: The United States of Anthropocene, a novel for middle-grade readers about kids fighting global warming. Kirkus Reviews, in a starred review, wrote: “A scathing work and an essential blueprint for youth battling climate change.” To read more about Peter, visit his website www.peteraronsonbooks.com or to purchase his book, click here.