4. NYC’s Water Supply System Provides One Billion Gallons of Water Per Day
New York City’s tap water comes from 19 reservoirs and three controlled lakes located in the Hudson Valley and Catskill regions. Those bodies of water are part of two primary surface water supplies, the Catskill/Delaware and Croton. In order to get clean water to all of New York City’s more than 8.8 million residents, the water supply system provides more than one billion gallons of water per day! This supply also serves one million people residing in Westchester, Putnam, Orange, and Ulster counties. That’s nearly half of the entire population of New York State. The water from our upstate watershed areas can take anywhere from 12 weeks to a year to travel through the system to the city, according to the New York Times.
