After decades of work, the nearly done megaproject will link its new capacity to the city’s 1-billion-gallon-per-day drinking water distribution network
Nearly five decades and $4 billion into the effort to build New York City’s Water Tunnel No. 3, the monumental project’s official end is not yet in sight. But the scope, pace and nature of city water infrastructure work ahead may be much different, and regional design and contracting firms already are steeling themselves for a new era.
The main stages of the massive boring operation that dug miles of tunnel deep underneath the city is largely complete—with major legs completed in 1998, 2001 and 2008—and upcoming tasks on Tunnel No. 3 are more geared toward connecting the system’s new capacity to a massive distribution network that brings in 1 billion gallons of fresh water per day. Today, $685 million in new work programmed in the New York City Dept. of Environmental Protection’s capital plans will mainly fund the construction of new shafts in Queens to bring water up from the tunnel depths to residents.