NYC drinking water may taste different due to upstate aqueduct repairs, officials say

What’s that taste?

Some New York City residents with sensitive palates might notice a difference in the taste and smell of their beloved tap water soon, as workers enter the final stage of repairs on one of the aqueducts that supplies the water from upstate, officials said on Monday.

The city’s Department of Environmental Protection said a stretch of the 85-mile-long Delaware Aqueduct near Newburgh will be shut down for several months to fix a leak that has been causing 35 million gallons of water a day to be lost and was first discovered in the 1990s.

Water will instead be rerouted through a 2.5-mile-long bypass tunnel that was constructed over the last 11 years and will be connected to the main aqueduct, while workers repair the leak as well as another one in Ulster County, the agency said. It’s the largest repair project in the department’s history, with most of the leaking happening near the Hudson River in Newburgh.

The city’s water supply, which provides about 1.1 billion gallons of drinking water daily, comes from a system of 19 reservoirs and three controlled lakes, officials said. As the aqueduct leaks are being fixed, the city will be tapping into one of them more than usual — the Croton Watershed.

DEP Commissioner Rohit Aggarwala said any difference people notice in the water’s taste won’t be because of the bypass tunnel but rather a change in the blend of sources the water will be coming from during the repairs. “Each of our nine reservoirs has a slightly different flavor just because the land is slightly different,” added Aggarwala. “And so the minerals, the clay, etc. in the water are going to be different.”

The water coming from the Croton Watershed will be filtered at the Croton Filtration Plant, which has been updated with granular activated carbon similar to household pitcher filters, according to the environmental department. Aggarwala said the water’s quality will continue to be tested and monitored as normal throughout the length of the project. You can read more here.

New York City drinking water is the best. We will let you know if we taste the difference!

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