TOWN OF NEWBURGH – The New York City Department of Environmental Protection has completed it bypass water tunnel under the Hudson River between the Town of Newburgh and the Town of Wappinger.
Once the 2.5-mile-long stretch that is 600 feet beneath the river is activated, leaking sections of the Delaware Aqueduct will be shut down and the leaks stopped. One is in Newburgh and the other in the Town of Wawarsing. The leaks, since the early 1990s, have been releasing an estimated 20 million gallons per day, about 95 percent escaping through the leak near the Hudson River in Newburgh.
When the project is finished in 2023, the bypass tunnel will be connected to structurally sound portions of the existing aqueduct on either side of the Hudson to carry water around a leaking section.
The 85-mile-long Delaware Aqueduct, the longest tunnel in the world, typically conveys about half of New York City’s drinking water each day from reservoirs in the Catskills.
The project began in 2013 with the excavation of two vertical shafts in Newburgh and Wappinger to gain access to the subsurface. The shafts, 845 and 675 feet deep respectively, were completed in 2016. A massive tunnel boring machined completed excavation of the tunnel in August 2016.
What followed next was installation of 9,200 linear feet of steel inside the tunnel and that was followed by concrete lining.
