Asking New Yorkers to step up and save water during a historically dry autumn, Mayor Eric Adams on Saturday declared a drought watch.
Rain in October and November typically helps refill the upstate reservoirs that provide New York City’s drinking water. But the reservoirs are at about 65.9% capacity, compared to a typical 76.6% capacity.
“Nobody needs to panic, but we really want New Yorkers to start being much more conscientious about how much water to consume on a daily basis and reduce wherever possible,” said Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Rohit Aggarwala, who also serves as the city’s chief climate officer.
Much of New York State is experiencing moderate drought conditions after the driest October in recorded history, with just .87 inches of rain in the reservoir area compared to a historical average of over 4 inches. It was the second-longest dry period in city records since 1869.
“We are praying for a wet November,” Aggarwala said. “The way we get out of this is that we have a wetter than average November and December.”
Read on for more about what’s next, how to conserve water and what we can learn from previous droughts in New York City.
What is a drought watch?
A drought watch is the first of three levels in the city’s advisory system. It is a signal for the public to avoid wasting water and for government agencies to prepare plans to reduce water consumption.
A drought watch can escalate to a drought warning, at which point city agencies would implement those plans.
“We should be going into a warning in the next couple of weeks,” said Emergency Management Commissioner Zach Iscol during a press conference Monday.
The highest tier of the advisory system is a drought emergency, which would bring mandatory restrictions on water use.
Aggarwala said the city is “probably a couple months away” from an emergency.
How can I save water? Will it actually make a difference?
New Yorkers use about 1 billion gallons of water per day. Mindfully using water can add up to millions of gallons saved. Here are some tips:
- Report leaky fire hydrants to 311
- Take shorter showers and don’t fill the tub all the way for baths
- Only run dishwashers and washing machines when full
- Hold off washing cars and watering lawns
- Turn off the tap while shaving or brushing teeth
- Don’t use toilets as trash disposals
- Install water-efficient showerheads and low-flow toilets
- Fix running toilets and other in-home leaks
Keep in mind that dishwashers and professional car washes are more water-efficient than hosing down a car in a driveway or washing dishes by hand.
Has this happened before?
The last time DEP issued a drought watch was in December 2001, with reservoir storage levels at 44%. By the spring of 2002, Mayor Michael Bloomberg declared a drought emergency and imposed mandatory water conservation measures, including bans on washing cars, spraying sidewalks with hoses and watering lawns. The city issued fines to violators enforcement agents caught.
That year, the Department of Parks and Recreation never turned on drinking fountains for the season, and Bethesda Fountain in Central Park and the pool beneath the Unisphere in Flushing Meadows Corona Park both stayed dry. Restaurants were instructed to only provide glasses of water to customers upon request.
It worked: New Yorkers reduced their consumption of water, on some days, by as much as 50 million gallons. As luck would have it, rain fell too, and Bloomberg lifted use restrictions in October 2002. The drought officially ended in January 2003.
Before that, Mayor Ed Koch saw three drought emergencies in the 1980s. In a PSA, Koch stood on the steps of City Hall surrounded by kids, each of whom he appointed “deputy mayor in charge of saving water.” The kids shouted, “Keep New York wet. Save water!”
Koch also encouraged New Yorkers to save water in toilets, telling them, “If it’s yellow, let it mellow. If it’s brown, flush it down.”
New York City is under a drought watch.
Here’s former Mayor Ed Koch in 1980 for the “Keep New York City Wet” campaign — maybe @NYCMayor should replicate it (via @LaGuardiaWagner https://t.co/dn3xQ5xP40) https://t.co/cO8L7i6s01 pic.twitter.com/ZgsKlhPU1D
— katie honan (@katie_honan) November 2, 2024
Where does New York City’s water come from, exactly?
New York City’s tap water comes from a network of reservoirs in the Hudson Valley and Catskill Mountains, about 125 miles north of the city.
The drought watch comes as the DEP is working to repair the Delaware Aqueduct, which has been leaking about 35 million gallons of water daily for about three decades.
Typically, the Delaware watershed — located in Delaware, Ulster, and Sullivan counties — typically provides about 90% of the city’s water. But since October, due to the repair work, a larger share of the city’s drinking water is coming from the Croton Watershed, which has less storage capacity than the Delaware system.
“What that means is that we are a little more reliant on rainfall, because we are more reliant on the Croton system,” Aggarwala said. “But the reality is the Delaware reservoirs are also low, and so we might have an extra couple of weeks if the repair weren’t going on, but it doesn’t change the overall trend.”
When the work is complete, the improved system will be more resilient during future droughts, according to Sarah Meyland, a water management expert and a member of the state Drinking Water Quality Council, who has been following the project.
“Once the leak is corrected, it will allow the city to manage the supply much better and more effectively, and it will even out the demand across the reservoir system,” Meyland said.
Why is this happening when New York City has been so rainy the last few years?
New York City has experienced record-shattering rain events in the past several years, and climate scientists predict more frequent and more intense storms to come. But drought is another effect of a changing climate, though it’s one that needs to be studied more, the New York City Panel on Climate Change noted in its latest report. The panel is a group of climate experts who advise city policymakers on the latest science and strategies to address hazards.
To prepare effectively, the authors wrote, city environmental officials need to assess how climate projections — especially around rainfall and evaporation rates caused by higher temperatures — and demand for drinking water will play into drought scenarios.
“If we don’t get a good handle or or get information about how our demand for water will change as a function of how populations are changing, how efficient our systems are, then we’ll have incomplete information,” said Luis Ortiz, a climate scientist and professor at George Mason University who worked on the report.
Though rainy weather will be key to alleviating the drought, a dangerous deluge like 2021’s deadly Hurricane Ida isn’t ideal, Aggarwala said.
What other effects should New Yorkers be alert for?
Droughts raise concerns for drinking water beyond New York City, as other areas in the region depend on the Delaware River Watershed. Sea water advances north up the Delaware River during dry periods, and more gradually along with sea level rise. If and when the so-called salt front inches to a critical point, drinking water supplied to Philadelphia and some other parts of Pennsylvania and New Jersey could be at risk.
To push the salt front down, reservoirs within the Delaware River Watershed, including New York City’s, must periodically release water downstream. This plan came in response to the record drought in the 1960s, when two of the city’s reservoirs nearly dried up, and the salt front got to its highest level yet on the Delaware River, just eight miles from where Philadelphia draws its drinking water.
New York City is allowed to release less water than normal as the severity of a drought increases.
What other dangers does a drought bring?
Dry conditions elevate the risk of fire, so officials urged New Yorkers to be careful when grilling and to properly extinguish and dispose of lit cigarette butts.
A brush fire burned in The Bronx’s Van Cortlandt Park on Monday, sending smoke into the air. Brush fires blazed in Staten Island in late October, too.
