An unworldly photo of a rainbow over the Ashokan reservoir, taken by NYC DEP intern Cailee Nicole.
The New York City Department of Environmental Protection is planning to drain the Ashokan Reservoir of about 450 million gallons per day for the next few weeks in a response to the storms and flooding that descended on the Catskill region a week ago. From an NYC DEP press release:
The releases will improve water quality in the reservoir, which saw an increase in turbidity levels as the result of rain storms on September 30 and October 1. Turbidity, or cloudiness, is a measure of the quality of water. Releasing water to the waste channel will also reduce reservoir levels, which will increase the reservoir’s ability to capture runoff from intense storms.
The DEP used a shiny new toy to help make this prediction: its "Operations Support Tool," a computer system that it is spending $5.2 million on over the course of the next three years.
(Incidentally, the DEP has another new toy: A whole Facebook page dedicated to "NYC Water." That's where we found the spectacular photo above. Who knew the DEP had a) a love of rainbows, and b) such awesome interns?)
The Ashokan may be cloudy, but it still isn't full, despite the six inches of rain we got last Friday and the drizzle we had most of this week. Here's the dam's hydrograph, which shows that the reservoir can still handle about six more inches of runoff before things get hairy.
