Letter to the Editor: The Running Waters of Brewster and Southeast

The town of Southeast has four and a half reservoirs (one shared with Croton
Falls/Westchester). These are the East Branch, Middle Branch, Diverting
Reservoir, Bog Brook (also known as Sodom Reservoir) and the Croton Falls Reservoir. They are some of the "East of Hudson" reservoirs along with Boyd Corners, Croton, Titicus, Amawalk, Cross River, Muscoot, Lake Gilead, Lake Gleneida and the Kensico and West Branch Reservoirs.

The source of the water to the Southeast reservoirs is the east branch of
the Croton River and the Great Swamp, which flows north and south from the
Town of Patterson. The East Branch, as it is known, flows from East Branch
Reservoir on the east side of Route 22, which is kept at the same level as
Bog Brook Reservoir on the west side of 22 behind the ,
Brewster Woods, etc. There are aqueducts under Route 22 in the vicinity of
the that equalize the level of the two bodies of water.

Bog Brook has a dam on Sodom Road which produces the East Branch in
Southeast. It flows south behind , the Valero Station and
down to the Borden Bridge (Village of Brewster Main Street) then turns due
west to parallel Marvin Avenue in the Village near Morningthorpe Avenue.
The East Branch then crosses Railroad Avenue to supply Diverting Reservoir
and it also continues down Route 22 to Croton Falls.

Diverting Reservoir has the stepped dam on Route 22 where the overflow from
the reservoir is once again combined with the East Branch in sight of Route
22. What is less obvious is that Diverting Reservoir actually diverts
water due west to the Croton Falls Reservoir. When you go south of Putnam
Hospital Center on Stoneleigh Avenue in Carmel, you cross a viaduct that
intersects the Croton Falls Reservoir. The eastern section comes from
Diverting Reservoir through a magnificent cut stone channel that runs along
the dirt road between Route 22 and Stoneleigh Avenue.

These reservoirs supply about 10 percent of the water that comes out of taps
in the older neighborhoods of New York City. The entire system is gravity
fed with no mechanical pumps of any kind anywhere in the system. All of the
reservoirs in Putnam and Westchester counties eventually merge into the
Kensico near Westchester Airport and continue south along the Sprain Brook
toward the Bronx. Just north of Yankee Stadium on the New York State Thruway, there is a bridge that is primarily made of cut stone.  It is an aqueduct that carries East of Hudson water to Manhattan and there are engravings of Edgar Allen Poe standing on the bridge.

The entire system was created between the 1890s and about 1915 because
people were dying all over New York City from tainted water. Land was taken
by eminent domain, houses and cemeteries were moved, people were relocated
and dams were built in valleys so that the water from the East Branch and
the natural lakes could flood the land to produce the reservoirs. Of
course, when the water is low, you can see the foundations and the old stone
walls that divided the farmland as it still does on undisturbed parcels
throughout the area. You will find these former communities at the bottom
of nearly every one of the reservoirs in the system. In fact, the Croton
Dam in Ossining is called the New Croton Dam because the original Croton Dam
leaked. To solve the problem, they built a taller dam down river and
flooded the land to submerge the original. For a century, it was the
largest submerged man-made structure in the world.

The other 90 percent of NYC's water comes from the West of Hudson reservoirs
in upstate New York at much greater elevations than the Croton System. The
water pressure in buildings in New York is largely a product of the
elevation of the supply. The Croton is only capable of driving water to the
height of a six or eight story building unaided by pumps. That kept its use
confined to the areas that were already developed when the reservoirs were
built and areas that were built up soon after they were created.

The New York City Public Library was the site of the above-the-ground water
supply in Manhattan when the system was unveiled. The reservoir was totally
man-made; looked like the bottom of pyramid and was open to the public for
strolling on the parapets.

The Putnam County Historian's office on Marvin Avenue and the Southeast
Museum on Main Street have many resources for you to investigate.  The
has many books on the Croton System. All of these
institutions are in the Village of Brewster.

In particular, I suggest the 19th Century reports to the Croton
aqueduct commissioners for more information. Google Books has some online. They detail the land purchases, the water volume in each reservoir and have steel engravings of the dams and viaducts under construction.

We live in a magnificent area — substantially because we live in a protected watershed.  Learn about it, you will love it as I do.

Denis Castelli