New Yorkers get a billion gallons of water a day through a 150-year-old system of reservoirs, tunnels and aqueducts. Part of that system is ready for a little TLC from the DEP, the city's Department of Environmental Protection, which operates and maintains it. 

"The Delaware Aqueduct is one of the larger water conveyance mechanisms from the upstate reservoirs into the city. It's developed a leak that we've known about for quite awhile but coming up with a solution to fix that leak has been challenging because we can't just shut that Aqueduct for a long period of time to make a repair," said DEP Commissioner Vincent Sapienza.

The solution is building a short tunnel parallel to the leaky stretch of the aqueduct and using it as bypass until the repairs can be made. But for six months the aqueduct will be completely shut. That won't happen until late 2022 but the DEP is not waiting to begin water conservation efforts. One place this is in action is at the Fire Academy on Randall's Island, where tens of thousands of gallons of water had been flowing into the sewers as firefighters trained.

"They take the the water out of the hyrdant it comes into the fire truck and they accellerate it through the hose lines to get the proper pressure to put the fires out," explained FDNY Captain Mike Jackson.

The FDNY suited me up in bunker gear to show me the water recovery system they created in partnership with the DEP. It saves 30,000 gallons of water every day.

"Previously that would just go down the sewer after their test was done, but now it's going into a system underground that stores that water and recycles it for the next test," Sapienza said.

The Department of Evironmental Protection works with other city agencies in the effort to conserve water, and they are asking everyday New Yorkers to help out too.

The DEP's conservation efforts already have helped to save nearly 10 million gallons a each day over the past five years.

The goal is to drive down use by another 10 million gallons daily by 2022.