Robotic Mini-sub to Inspect NYC Water System

jhiv writes: "The Delaware Aqueduct, one of the world's longest water tunnels, may be developing potential serious leaks, according to this article in the New York Times (free registration). One leak has already created a pond and a stream with a flow of a million gallons per day. New York city officials plan to use a robotic mini-submarine being developed by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution to inspect the interior of the 13 foot diameter tunnel. Previous repairs required four deep sea divers to spend almost a week at 700 feet pressure to fix a leaking valve. Ironically, if the tunnel is repaired, the wetlands created by leaks will be destroyed, causing a potential EPA violation. Additional coverage can be found here and here." NYC has been building a third major water tunnel to take the load off the first two - but it's a fifty-year project.

Comments

This is some VERY cool stuff!

[nbvb]

It's simply amazing to me how much we take for granted our water supply....

That said, I hope there's still water to run through the aqueduct come May.... we're having a SERIOUS drought condition here in the Northeast...

In fact, both Jersey and New York (ever notice how Jersey is the only "New" state that can be named without the "new"? Anyway...) Anyway, both Jersey and New York are in a "Stage 3" water emergency.... and it's only early March!

This is gonna be a bad one.... let's hope the little yellow submarine finds some secret cache of a few billion gallons :-)

--NBVB

Little Known Fact...

[SexPig]

The television show Beauty & The Beast with Linda Hamilton filmed in the huge hole that was in NY's Central Park 10 years ago. This hole was the drop point for large equipment to get lowered into the tunnel being digged. For those inerested it was West-South-West of Delcorte Theater. I think the new drop point is in Queens now...

The third water tunnel is really going well.

[NickV]

The nice thing about this capital project, is it may be the first major capital project that is on schedule. Compared to the Big Dig in Boston, the NYC water project is remarkably on schedule, and is even arguably ahead of schedule.

In fact, 13 miles of the third tunnel is ALREADY activated and allows a little of the stress of tunnels 1 and 2 to be relieved.

I can't even imagine what the city will do when this project will be done... they'll be a serious amount of money freed up for more capital projects. Perhaps sinking the west side highway from canal to the brooklyn/battery tunnel and creating another central park-type area? The idea's been batted around since the 80s. Hmm... Gotta say, nothing seems to keep NYC down.

This is important news

[hyrdra]

What I find most interesting about all of this is the statement about repairs being too risky and to just let the thing leak itself to death, hopefully while building a new tunnel.

I agree with the lawyer in this case -- this seems like a really serious problem, with the capability of affecting many, many people. NYC has already had it's share of disasters, hopefully a city-wide water failure won't be next.

I was also thinking about that 1958 inspection, and the statement in the article about how draining a high pressure underground tunnel can be very dangerous to it's structure. Is it possible that a significant amount of damage occured in the '58 jeep tour, when the tunnel is drained? The sources at hand even state the sink-hole was created around this time, so possibly the ignorance of the past and an inspection is to blame for these leaks?

All I can say is I hope they will do something preventative. How big is the risk to do repairs vs. building a new tunnel? Hopefully we will all have water in a few years! This news (including the 12-year cover up) is certainly interesting to know...and it's been going on all along under our feet!

I wouldn't take much risk with something as fundamental as water.

Duct tape!

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't they just use duct tape to seal the leak?

Don't believe BS about wetlands violations

[waytoomuchcoffee]

First of all, the Corps of Engineers regulates filling of wetlands (through the 404 permit process), not the EPA.

Second of all, this is exempt from Corps fill requirements as it is a man-made water source.

How do I know? Because I'm the one that gets Corps wetland delineations done for the water agency I work for, and man-made sources (like those created from all of our water sampling stations) are NOT regulated by the Corps.

The guy in the article said "Those wetlands are going to dry up and that's probably against the law." Note the "probably". He obviously does not do regulatory work.

Before anyone else on this board talks about "environmentalist whackos", get your facts straight.

Re:Don't believe BS about wetlands violations

[Kymermosst]

Doesn't matter who regulates the filling of them, the problem is WHO defines what a wetland is. There is another poster who seems to think that with the EPA, 14 days of continued "wet" area... e.g. ponds, puddles, snowmelt, whatever, makes it a wetland.

While, I don't think that is exactly correct, the current definitions are still absurd, and still used as a way for a small number of people to stop a large number of people from using their own land.

Furthermore, the Corps does NOT, as far as I can tell, regulate wetlands within incorporated areas, and NOTHING prevents other agencies from stopping you, even if the Corps would give you a permit.

I know this because my family has 7 acres of land in Minnesota that we bought 40 years ago, with the idea of subdividing it and selling it in the future.

Now that future is here, and when we went to do that, suddenly it is a wetlands (It is lakeshore property, of course it's fscking wet!), and nobody bothered to inform us over the 40 years that it had become one, nobody gave us an option to appeal its status, and the land is worthless to anyone. You can't even camp there.

The land would be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars we could use it the way we bought it. Right now, it is worth... Nothing.

My point is, that this is bullshit.

Re:*Groan* Go Hug a Tree

[2nd Post!]

You can't be serious?

No one is talking about 'a few extra trees'

When they say NJ has no water table, that means there's no money left in the bank... The area is living hand to mouth here.

Water in the ground is like money in the bank. If there's any sort of disruption (manmade, natural, catastrophe, or otherwise), THERE IS NO WATER.

So... you in NJ with decent roads, better and bigger facilities and housing, but absolutely no water. What would you do? Nothing to drink with, nothing to bathe with, nothing to clean with...

Or rather, there *would* be water, but you may not be able to afford to use it, if it's priced like milk or gas :)

don't go int there!!

[wildcard023]

Are they nuts?! Just driving a harmless little robot around the sewer system. Next thing you know you'll have alligators in the street, vigilante ninja turtles and rivers of slime that lead to bill murray driving Mecha Liberty around with a 8 bit Nintendo "arcade style" joystick!

What the hell are they thinking?!

The Great Stink of London

[ajm]

I suspect many geeks would also be interested in this book The Great Stink of London about the Victorian engineering works that transformed London and the Thames. A fascination subject, considering the same tunnels etc. are still in use today. If any code you write lasts as long then ....

Infrastructure by the lowest bidder

[SimJockey]

Roman aquaducts seem to be lasting 20 times as long as this. Silly capitalism. :)

Seriously, crumbling infrastructure is only part of the reason that I see water getting (comparitively) real expensive in our lifetime. As source waters get more scarce and contaminated treatment costs go up. Plus the infrastructure is just wearing out. And since governments (at least in N. America) seem loathe to raise taxes, the costs are going to be passed on to the end user. Which I really don't think is a bad thing, once people realize the real costs of the resources they take for granted, conservation should go way up.

So yeah, flame me for being a tree hugger. Some are passionate about linux, I'm passionate about water.