NY1 Exclusive: Bronx Water Filtration Plant Nearly Complete
To view our videos, you need to
enable JavaScript. Learn how.
install Adobe Flash 9 or above. Install now.
Then come back here and refresh the page.
For five years, the city has been digging and constructing a controversial water filtration plant. NY1's Dean Meminger goes on an exclusive tour inside the nearly-completed site. It’s a long journey down to the tunnels and construction of the city's first facility to filter drinking water.
"You are down at the lowest level of the Croton Water Filtration plant here in the Bronx, about 80 feet below the surface,” said Department of Environmental Protection Executive Construction Manager Bernard Daly.
In 2005, construction began on the plant, which is built where the old Van Cortlandt driving range used to be, off Jerome Avenue.
Currently the city’s drinking water is only disinfected, but the federal government mandates that water be filtered, as well. This plant will do just that, using sand and coal along with various other methods.
"It will do full filtration, followed by UV disinfection that kills two of the most difficult microorganism to kill, called cryptosporidium and giardia,” Daly explained.
Right now, about 10 percent of the city's water, about 100-million gallons a day, comes from the Croton watershed in Upper Westchester County. The new plant will be able to filter up to 300-million gallons a day, if necessary, to bring more water to the city.
"The residents of New York City when they go home and turn their water on, they don't know what it takes to get that service to them, just like electricity and gas,” said operating engineer Kevin Johns. “There is a lot of work that goes into that."
It also takes a lot of money. This project is currently projected to cost nearly $3 billion, more than a billion dollars over budget.
The DEP continues to say construction costs have soared since ground was broken five years ago. Still workers are proud the project is near completion and has given people work.
"To know that places like this provide jobs, not only during construction, but after is always a great thing,” said construction manager Vincent Querijero.
And DEP says it is going to keep its promise to the community and golfers. After construction is completed here, the site will be covered with soil, the driving range will be replaced and a new club house built.
The city hopes to start testing the filtration plant within a year and hopes it is fully functional in 2012.