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Selects: NYC Water: An Engineering Marvel · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hell to everybody. I hope you're having a lovely Saturday
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: wherever you are in the world. Chuck, here with a
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Saturday Select selection, and I'm going to go with from
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: November twenty nineteen, not even so long ago, as the
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Crow Flies. The episode is NYC Water Colon an Engineering Marvel.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: I love New York City. Everyone knows that I go
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: on and on about that city on the show, and
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: I'm constantly amazed that city runs, and that the trash
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: gets taken away and the mail gets delivered, and that
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: people have enough drinking water and water to bathe in
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: and cook with. And so it's a pretty unique situation
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: there in New York how they get their water. And
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: here's that story. Please to enjoy. Welcome to Stuff You
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: Charles so B, Chuck Bryant, there's guest producer Andrew. This
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: is Stuff you should Know. Let's get this a.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: I'm excited about this one.
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: This was your pick and I was like, what is
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: Chuck talking about? Were you really yes? And then Chuck,
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: I happened to stumble upon I don't know what I
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: was looking for, but an email from somebody who sent
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: like a Google doc or something that was a list
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: of episodes we said we should do, and people have
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: set those in before, but this one was kind of
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: condensed and that was on there. So I've stumbled upon
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: your dirty little secret.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: I don't think that's where I got it. Oh really,
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: I don't think so, but maybe Okay, I just know
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: that I am always fascinated by not only New York City,
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: but by the fact that New York City functions with
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: that many people and all that everything. It's just all
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: amazing to me that that city functions with that many people,
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: that many buildings, that like, I want to do an
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: episode on out trash removal.
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: Okay, I want to do one on the mail on
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: wastewater treatment. Yeah, oh yeah, that's just New York in general.
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  Speaker 1: That's been long brewing.
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: Are you okay with that?
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: Just I mean, we can mention New York or whatever.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: Big thanks to Dave Ruse though, one of our great writers.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: They put this together and it's really really fascinating.
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  Speaker 2: Dave's just an amazing human. All of our writers are amazing,
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: for sure. Dave is great as well. He's one of
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: a few select amazing people.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: So the reason why New York, why anybody would ask
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: about New York's water is because if you've ever interacted
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: with the New Yorker, they talk about their water a lot.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: It's like kind of a thing in New York where
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: they're like, our tap water is the best water in
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: the country, and they have like a lot of stuff
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: to back that up with, and so much so that
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: that they say this, this water is actually the reason
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: why our bagels and our pizza are so good.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I was. We were both just there for our
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: final shows of the year at the Bellhouse thanks to
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: people who came out. Yes, they were great, a lot
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: of fun. And by the way, the guy that fell
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: asleep on the front row on night number two, I
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: think it was night number two. I was walking down
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: the street and he randomly passed by driving in a
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: car and rolled down his window and said, hey man,
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: He said great show the other night.
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: Right, And I was waiting for him to say, is
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: that Freedom Rock?
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: And I said thanks dude, I was like front row
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: And he was so excited that I remembered that, and
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: he said front row and he drove on before I
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: had a chance to say you fell asleep.
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: He's like, I feel like I was there. Maybe I
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: felt like a dream too.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: I don't know, but we were just there. And there
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: are many many restaurants in New York where there will
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: be like a water cooler or a place where you
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: can help yourself to your own cup of water, and
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  Speaker 1: it will have a big sign on it that says
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  Speaker 1: New York City tap water and proud all caps underlined letters.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, And they mean like they're just getting water out
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  Speaker 2: of the tap, Whereas in other cities that's a dirty,
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  Speaker 2: shameful secret that people don't talk about.
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  Speaker 1: That's right.
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  Speaker 2: In New York, they proudly boast about it. And just
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: the fact that New York or any New Yorker in
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: the city gets water at all is pretty spectacular. It's
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: like you said, there's a lot of people, there's a
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  Speaker 2: lot of buildings, and something like more than a billion
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  Speaker 2: gallons of water flow into New York through the taps
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  Speaker 2: every day.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I said day with the d yes. It is
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  Speaker 1: the largest water system in the United States. People from
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: all over the world, government officials fly in and take
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: meetings with the New York City water people just to see,
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  Speaker 1: like how have you done it?
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  Speaker 2: They're just agog, how could we do better? So that's
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: impressive enough that a billion, more than a billion gallons
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  Speaker 2: of water is delivered every day to New Yorkers. Pretty great.
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  Speaker 2: But the idea that you can just drink it straight
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: from the tap and it is ninety percent unfiltered, yeah,
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  Speaker 2: that is a truly impressive feat.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. And by ninety percent unfiltered, we mean ninety percent
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  Speaker 1: of the water is unfiltered and ten percent is filtered.
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  Speaker 2: Right, And you might say, look, how can you just
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: filter ninety percent of the water. Well, it comes from
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: different places, that's right. So ninety percent of the water
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: comes from two places, two watersheds that combined are called
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: the Catskill Delaware Watershed or water system I think. And
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: then the other one from the Crow Croton I always
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: want to say Crow toWin. Yeah, but from the Croton Reservoir.
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  Speaker 2: That ten percent is actually filtered. We'll get into all
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: of that. But ninety percent of New York's water is not.
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  Speaker 2: It doesn't go through a filtering process. And that makes
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: New York one of only five major cities in the
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  Speaker 2: United States to get a waiver from the EPA that
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  Speaker 2: says your water is so deliciously pure and delightful that
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  Speaker 2: you don't need to filter it. Almost every other city
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  Speaker 2: has to have a filtering process before it gets delivered
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  Speaker 2: to taps.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: That's right. And the other four naturally Seattle, Portland, Oregon,
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: San Francisco. The one that's a bit of a surprise
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: is Boston, Massachusetts.
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  Speaker 2: What's that's how surprising it is, Chuck, Yeah, that's right.
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  Speaker 1: So let's talk a little bit about the history of
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: New York and their water, because back in the day,
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: we've always talked about how what a disgusting, disease ridden
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: poop and horse urine ridden place New York City was.
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, supposedly there's a good twelve inches of horse manure
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  Speaker 2: on the street at all times. They before they really
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: started cleaning their place up.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's pretty bad.
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  Speaker 2: I think that was in the wind Criest Typhoid Marry episode,
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: which is a great.
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: One, another great New York episode. So if we're talking
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: New Amsterdam, pre New York City, they got water where
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: you would think from ponds and natural springs, underwater springs,
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: and they had a forty eight acre pond it's about
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  Speaker 1: sixty feet deep in Tribeca. What is now Tribeca called
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: the Collect and also the little Collect that was just
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: south of there, And that name comes from the Dutch
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  Speaker 1: word caulk, which means small body of water. And the
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  Speaker 1: Collect was where they got their water for a long
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  Speaker 1: time until the city let some tanners built a tannery
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  Speaker 1: on the shores of the Collect, not smart New York,
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  Speaker 1: which ruined everything.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, because it started to get polluted. They all were
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: able to drill wells and stuff around places where people
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: pooped and peed and then dump their poop and pee.
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  Speaker 2: It was a dirty, dirty place because this is pre
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: germ theory, or at least around the time the germ
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: theory was being developed and people didn't understand it. And
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  Speaker 2: I think it was our great stink episode where they
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  Speaker 2: traced a colera epidemic to a public well, a public
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  Speaker 2: water pump. John Snow, if I remember correctly did that.
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  Speaker 2: And this would have been around the time that New
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  Speaker 2: Yorkers were suffering from cholera epidemics, one of which took
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: place in I think the eighteen thirties, eighteen thirty two.
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  Speaker 2: It killed thirty five hundred New Yorkers and that was
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  Speaker 2: a substantial amount of the population at the time, and
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: another one hundred thousand New Yorkers had to flee just
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: to get away from this colera epidemic, and it was
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  Speaker 2: because their sewage and their water was coexisting in very
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: unhealthy ways. So New York said, maybe we should try
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  Speaker 2: something else. Let's look a little further outside the city
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  Speaker 2: where we're dumping our waists and everything. See if we
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  Speaker 2: can get our water from there.
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  Speaker 1: And they did.
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  Speaker 2: They built the Croton Reservoir. They damned the river, and
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  Speaker 2: reservoir collected and they said, now we have some beautiful
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  Speaker 2: pure water. We will never need to do anything again
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  Speaker 2: to get our water.
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  Speaker 1: That's right. Previous to that, though, in the eighteenth century,
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  Speaker 1: they had these public pumps like you were talking about
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  Speaker 1: on street corners, about every four blocks or so, a
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  Speaker 1: big wooden pump where you would get your water from
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  Speaker 1: underground streams and springs and stuff. But there were only
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: a few of these that actually delivered good water. A
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: lot of it was really brackish and gross tasting, and
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: Americans and early European settlers obviously loved their tea, and
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: so they marked this was almost like an early yelp
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  Speaker 1: or whatever. They had these pumps that actually delivered like
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: the two or three good pumps in the city that
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: delivered good water labeled tea water.
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: Pumps, but like it was good enough to use for tea.
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: Good enough to use for making good tea, okay, so
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: they would go to these tea water pumps. You would
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: have to buy the water. The best one was apparently
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: at Chathaman Roosevelt. There was another and sort of what
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: the Lower east Side is today that was a good
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: tea water pump. And this worked out for a long
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: time until the collect and all this stuff. It started
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: to sort of get nasty and stinky, and so they
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: built a canal to channel that water into the river.
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: Like that, we got to get rid of it and
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: drain this thing. So they build this canal forty feet wide,
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  Speaker 1: they channel it. Right after they finish it, this canal
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: begins to sink, and in eighteen twenty one it got
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: so bad. The smell was so bad that they eventually
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: just covered up the canal. And guess what that became.
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: I don't know, Central Park Canal Street. Oh, how about
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: that so stupid? I wasn't even in the right part
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: of the city.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: That's all right.
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: We've even done an episode on Central Park and that
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: wouldn't it forget it? Yes, Canal Street obviously.
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: That's where Canal Street came from. That was literally a
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: canal and then eventually an underground sewage system under running
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: under Canal Street. Right, And there's another cool little tidbit
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: if you want like your little New York history, if
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: you like to walk around on subways and tell people
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: about cool things. Yeah, one of the first public reservoirs
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: in the city was dug by Aaron Burr and his
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: Manhattan Company, and that didn't work out. They transported it
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: through wooden logs as pipes bury beneath the city.
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: Somebody found a piece of that wooden log. It's in
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: one of the museums up there. Now, Oh no way, Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: That is very cool. But the water didn't taste great
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: and it didn't work out for Aaron Burr, so he changed.
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  Speaker 1: He still kept the Manhattan Company, but he got into
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: banking and the Manhattan Company became Chase Manhattan Bank.
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: I saw somewhere that that was his aim all along,
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: that the water thing was just basically a fleece to
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: raise money to found oh really, and that that's why
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: the water was so shoddy and the delivery was so shoddy.
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: But what they were selling was so bad supposedly the
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: horses wouldn't even drink.
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: It, So it's a scam.
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: It was basically a scam. Aaron Burr was not the
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: greatest historical American shot Alexander Hamilton.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: I know that's enough right there, right.
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: And then also scammed a bunch of people out of
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: their water investment. That's right, because I mean, if you
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: want to invest in a bank, you want to invest
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: in a bank. If you want to invest in a
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: water outfit, you want to invest in a water outfit.
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: You want people to be above the boards with stuff
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: like that.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: That's right above the dogs.
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: That's my tirade.
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: So you mentioned the Croton Dam and the Croton Reservoir.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: I want to say crow atone as well. Yeah, that
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: became and that aqueduct became operational and things were okay,
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: but then a tragedy struck with the Great Fire of
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: eighteen thirty.
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: Five, Yes, which actually I guess that the Great Fire
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: took place right before the reservoir was opened, which is
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: why the greats are bad. Yeah. So in eighteen thirty five,
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: on a night in December, a warehouse caught fire and
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: it just leveled Lower Manhattan, like just destroyed something like
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: seventeen city blocks, fifty acres of the most densely populated
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: part of New York at the time, and luckily only
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: two people died. Was too many, but considering that it
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: was seventeen city blocks that got reduced to ash, that's
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: not bad actually, especially considering that the way that they
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: ended up fighting this fire was by setting buildings on
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: the perimeter on fire because they didn't have the amount
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: of water that they needed.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the reason for that it was just sort of
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: really bad luck. They were two smaller fires that drained
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: our hour. Like I'm a New Yorker, listen to.
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: Me, you're an honorary New Yorker, I would guess.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: It drained the cisterns, the reserve cisterns that they had,
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: and because of those two smaller fires, they didn't have
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: enough to fight the Great Fire. And the long and
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: short of all this, as New York said, we got
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: to really speed up this Croton Reservoir work.
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: Yep, and they did. And so the Croton Reservoir was
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: broad online in the middle of the nineteenth century, and
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: they had a big old parade and everything, and it
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: delivered something like ninety million gallons of delicious pure water
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: to New York in the middle of the nineteenth century.
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: It was a really big deal and it worked really
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: well for a very long time. But there was also
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: they built the murray Hill Reservoir so the Croton Reservoir
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: would be where the water collected upstate. And then they
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: built an aqueduct system which is still around in parts today,
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: an elevated aqueduct to what's called the murray Hill Reservoir,
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: which was a four acre above ground swimming pool.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: Basically, it's pretty cool if you look at pictures.
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, it was like a real spot in the
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: city while it was around, I think something till eighteen
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: forty two to nineteen hu it was around, and people
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: used to take strolls around it and make paintings of
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: it and that kind of thing. And it is where
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: the New York Public Library is now today, where the
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: Ghostbusters did some of their early work. All right, right,
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: but it worked really well for you know, the time.
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: But then as New York grew and grew and grew,
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: it became very painfully obvious yet again that New York
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: had outgrown its water supply.
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they needed more water. Ninety million gallons a day
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: wasn't enough. And then what made matters worse was in
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: eighteen ninety eight, New York City officially made it a
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: declaration that we are now not just Lower Manhattan. Of course,
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: they didn't call Lower Manhattan at the time, right, that
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: was just sort of where the city ended.
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: They called it Manahattan.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Manhattan.
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: I saw that episode, by the way, it was one
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: of the better ones ever, which one think of what
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: we do in the dark. Oh, that's right, where they
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: go to party in Manhattan Manahattan.
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: Yea, what we do in the shadows? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: I'm so stupid, that's all right. The Five Burrows were
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: included in eighteen nine to eight officially, so New York
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: and the water needed to get to the people was
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: officially grown to more than three million people by the
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: time the twentieth century turned.
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: Right, which is just precious today. Three million New Yorkers,
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, I really do. So they started to
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: look upstate again because they had hit upon like a
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: pretty good idea. The city is a cesspool. We need
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: our water from outside of this cesspool. And they started
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: looking up state. So this time they looked up to
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: the cat Skills and they found two watersheds, which we
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: did an episode on watersheds that I would love to forget,
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: but it came up just now.
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: Oh I thought it was good.
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: No, oh man, it was horrendous, was it? Yes? I
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: thought it was terrible and boring.
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: January twenty seventeen.
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: I don't remember when it came out. Like I said,
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: I tried to forget that it ever happened.
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: I thought it was pretty good.
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: But anyway, So a watershed is basically a specific topographical
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: air area where rain, snow, whatever precipitation falls down into
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: this area and is delivered to a specific creek, river stream,
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: something like that that eventually empties into like a lake
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: or reservoir or something like that. So there's two watersheds,
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: the Delaware and the Catskill Watershed that put together create
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: something like two thousand square miles of water catching goodness,
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: and it delivers it to a number of different reservoirs.
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: And that is now today where New York gets like
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: ninety percent of its water.
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so you know, obviously they had to dam up
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: rivers to create these reservoirs, and this all happened to
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: you in the early nineteen hundreds. And then finally they
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: were like, great, We've got all these reservoirs and the Catskills,
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: but let me remind you, we're on the lower east
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: side of Manhattan, surrounded by horse hearin and a lot
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: of it and poop. We need our fresh water. How
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: do we get it here? So in nineteen seventeen, the
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: engineers of New York City completed the ninety two mile
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: Catskill Aqueduct YEP, which is amazing. It's basically a big
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: concrete tunnel that sends water ninety two miles from the
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: Catskills down to New York. It's as wide as thirty
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: feet in some places. It is not a tunnel the
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: entire length, as we will see here in a minute.
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: Not a continuous tunnel. I'm not sure what that means.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: What is it just like open.
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: There's parts of it that aren't technically a tunnel in
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: that it's a covered trench. Okay, they cut a trench
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: and then they covered it back up, which I don't
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: know how you do that. But it's not technically a
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: tunnel like a circle or tube.
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: Interesting, and here is to me one of the facts
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: of the show. You get this water down there in
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: the aqueduct and you get to the Hudson River, and
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: what are you gonna do? You gotta go under it.
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: Right to me, it'd just be like just pump it
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: in the Hudson and hope it comes out the other side.
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: But then I would have gotten fired immediately when night
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: he's no engineer. No, he's a sham.
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: He's a rapscallion. So it gets to the Hudson River
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: and then it goes way down into the ground, about
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: eleven hundred feet below sea level, and then climbs back
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: up the other side. And it does all this via gravity.
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: Yes, and they did that not just to show off,
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: but because they decided. I read this awesome, you know
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: how I'm always like read the contemporary articles. I read
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: one from nineteen oh seven where they were talking about
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: the construction of the aqueduct and they said that the
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: reason why they were going down that far is because
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: they wanted to hit bedrock because it would be fissure free,
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: meaning there would be no leakage, and they could just
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: pump the water through the hole that they bored in
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: the bedrock. Well, they thought the bedrock was going to
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: be about five hundred feet down, and by nineteen oh
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: seven when they wrote the Scientific American article, they'd reached
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: like seven hundred feet still hadn't hit it. It ended
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: up being like eleven hundred feet below sea level where
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: they finally hit bedrock. And that's why they had to
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: drill so far down. And they drilled a tunnel, a
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: vertical shaft from the from the Hudson down to that tunnel,
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: and they built like a tube to pressurize it. So
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: the water eleven hundred feet under the Hudson is at
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: like fifteen tons per square foot of pressure, which also helps.
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: But the fact that there's no pumps or anything, it's
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: all gravity and pressure driven.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: Yes, And sadly though, that story has a sad ending
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: because it took so long that their fissure free and
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: three T shirts were all rendered useless.
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: What No, I don't know that it's a great joke.
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna go back and listen to it and I'll
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: probably think it's hilarious, So compliments on it in advance.
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: Oh man, that was a quality joke.
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: Three gotcha? Okay, sure, sure, yeah, yeah, yeah, I gotcha,
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: All right, I got you. We're all together. Now, Okay,
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: that is a pretty good joke.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: Gee. Should we take a break after that? Yeah, all right,
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: let's take a break. We'll talk a little bit more
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: about this so called aqueduct right after this.
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: Stuff you should know, Josh, and shuck stuff you should know.
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: Okay, Chuck. So we've got the Catskill Aqueduct delivering water.
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: There's another one in two called the Delaware Aqueduct. And
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: this one actually is like a genuine tunnel.
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: Yes, it's eighty five miles, completed in forty four. I'm
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: not gonna make a T shirt joke about that. And
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: it is still the longest continuous tunnel in the world
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: at eighty five miles. And they did this all, you know,
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: just this digging process is amazing in and of itself,
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: digging these tunnels and these trenches with steam shovels and
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: pouring the concrete tunnel, which I was like, how do
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: you do that? Even, Yeah, you do the bottom half
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: let it set, and then you do the top half
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: and let that set. So they were like Charles Bronson
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: in The Great Escape. They were digging tunnels.
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean we're talking like dynamite and stuff like that.
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: Like they really did it the old school way to
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: build these aqueducts, and they're still in use today, so
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: much so that there's three tunnels. Tunnel number one and
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: tunnel number two have been in operation since nineteen seventeen
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: and nineteen thirty six. They've never stopped operating. They've never
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: been stopped up and drained and inspected in over one
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: hundred years. For tunnel number one.
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think the current memo going around is I'm
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: sure it's fine.
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: Well, so they're building tunnel number three, and they decided
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: to start building tunnel number three nineteen fifty four. They
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: actually started in nineteen seventy. They are still not done
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: with tunnel number three.
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: It's amazing.
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: Parts of it are online. And when it does fully
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: come online, tunnel number three will have a capacity enough
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: so that they can individually stop and drain and inspect
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: and repair tunnel number one and then eventually tunnel number two.
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: So the tunnel number three, Yeah, tunnel number three will
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: save the other two. And it's good that they're doing
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: it now. But I saw that it's going to be
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: fully operational in twenty twenty one.
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: They think, oh wow, so we're almost there.
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: Almost man.
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's the New York's longest running municipal project, five
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: billion dollar price tag so far and count I guess.
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: And then those three tunnels or two, and however many
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: parts of three are working deliver one point three gallons
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: of water a day through a network of mainz and
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: then individual pipes leading to apartments and homes and businesses
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: and skyscrapers, and all of those pipes, if you total
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: them up, would lay out about seven thousand miles.
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: That's pretty impressive. I would also like to point out
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: that I think you meant one point three billion gallons?
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: Would I say one point three gallons? Yeah? Really, which
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: would be hilarious that they went to all this trouble,
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: spend all this money, and they're like, we can crank
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: out one three gallons a day, New York. Gather around
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: and get your water.
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: I was still thinking about my t shirt joke.
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: It's a good joke.
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: And here's the kicker too. Another great fact of the show.
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: Only five percent of all of the city's water lies
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: on pumps to get to its final destination, which it
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: means your tap.
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: It's pretty awesome. Yeah, So that means that it can't
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: break down or if something does happen. They still have
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: things like gravity to help things along. It's great. So
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: the reason why the EPA gave New York a waiver
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: and said you don't have to filter the water coming
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: from the Catskill and the Delaware watersheds is because.
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: Because Giuliani greased the palms of the EPA.
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: Right exactly, it started well, it started out as so pure,
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: in pristine and just great water to begin with. But
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: they have taken steps along the way to ensure that
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: it stayed that way. Because one of the things that
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: happened with the Croton Reservoir is development was allowed to
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: grow up around it, Agriculture was allowed to pollute it.
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: It just got it turned. And after that, the EPA,
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: I think in the nineties the late nineties, said, yep,
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: you guys have to are't filtering that water. It's no
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: longer unfilterable. It's it's not drinkable as is, So they
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: had to start filtering. It used to be one hundred
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: percent of New York's water was unfiltered that Croton Reservoir.
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: Now is ten percent that is filtered. But so they
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: learned a valuable lesson from that, and now they're very
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: proactive and keeping the Delaware and Catskill reservoir or watershed
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: water from becoming corrupted by things like development and agriculture.
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and by you know, the lesson they learned is money,
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: because you might be thinking, like, what's the big deal,
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: why don't they just filter all of it. It's a
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: lot cheaper to take care of the land and make
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: sure you never have to filter it than to install
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: a filtering plant.
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because they estimate that a filtering plant would cost
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: something like ten billion dollars up front and then one
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: hundred million dollars a year to operate. New York is
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: spending something like one billion dollars every several years to
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: protect the Delaware the Catskill water sheds. So it is
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: an enormous investment. But also it's great because it's natural
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: water that's unfiltered.
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And you know, they do this in a number
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: of ways, aside from buying up forty percent of the land,
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: which was a good move and making sure nothing happens
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: to it.
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: Yep. So New York City owns a lot of land upstate.
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah to stef Yi, Yeah, forty percent. Yeah, it's
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: a lot of land, not forty percent of New York
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: State but forty percent of the property around the Catskill
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: and Delaware water sheds. They also did things like, hey,
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: let's look at all the wastewater treatment facilities upstream, and
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: let's invest a lot of money in upgrading those. Hey all,
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: you people that have septic tanks that are falling apart,
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: that matter, So we're going to reimburse you fifty two
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: hundred homeowners. Yeah that's impressive.
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, install a new septic tank, and we're going to
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: pay for it.
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: They remove dead trees, they replace those with little sapling
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: trees who apparently have roots that are young and can
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: abs or a lot of harmful nutrients from that rain water.
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: And here's another good fact of the show. Some of
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: the water from those reservoirs or from that watershed can
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: take up to a full year to make its way
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: down to the tap that you're drinking out of.
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: That's a good one. I like that one. It's almost
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: like the how long it takes sunlight to reach us?
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: And you were gonna say that it's the same thing.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: It's the same thing.
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: They also did you talk about farmers.
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: The only difference between those stats is you don't have
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: to explain what a photon is you can just say water.
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: It's a tiny packet of light. It's the carrier of
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: electromagnetic and it's right.
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: What did you ask right before that?
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: Did you talk about the farmers how they train farmers
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: upstate too? I did not, So they say, hey, you hicks,
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: you're gonna learn these techniques, man to I'm just kidding.
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: I love farmers. I would actually, as a matter of fact, Chuck,
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: when I retire, I really really want like a small
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: working farm. Oh yeah, very small, Like what do you want,
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: like a tenth of an acre? Small?
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: No? No, what kind of stuff do you want to farm?
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: What do you want on it?
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: Oh? I don't care? Yeah, oh yeah, some animals, but
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: just you know, having pigs around, not to eat or milk,
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: but to like basically but to like to churen up
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: like a field so that I can plan it the
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: next year and move the pigs to the next part
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: of the land. That kind of stuff. For chickens to
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: just walk around and eat their eggs and things like that.
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: You want some chickens, some pigs, you want some probably
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: a couple of goats. A couple of goats. You want
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: some planting you want to farm, some plants and vegetables.
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: Sure, yeah, but mainly just to have something to do,
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: like with the earth. So I was one hundred million
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: percent teasing when when I said that New York was
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: calling the farmers hecks. New York probably did call the
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: farmer's hicks. But I wasn't condoning that. I was just
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: making a joke.
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: Right, you're the guy who wants a tenth of an
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: acre one day to do something on that. You're not sure.
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: Those pigs are gonna be Like, this is some pretty
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: tight quarters around here. Oh you know what else? I
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: would do what? And I would need more of a
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: tenth more than a tenth of an acre for this?
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: Raise bees. That is where I will eventually raise bees.
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: It's on Josh's farm.
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: Well, brother, you better get some land soon because it's leaving.
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: At a land is leaving, Yeah, I mean it's people
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: are buying land. There's I remember my parents looking at
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: land when I was like ten years old, and they
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: didn't buy it.
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: They say it's leaving, and it's.
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: A different deal. Now. It's a lot harder to find
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: the land that you want. You know, people bought it
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: all up.
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: I know you can still get it, but you got
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: to pay through the nose for.
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: It, yeah, or it's up to them if they want
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: to sell it or not. You know, sure we're getting
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: second rate, we're getting sloppy seconds.
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: Oh god, oh man, that's gonna be one of those
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: things that, like our younger listeners is going to be
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: in college smoking pot in a dorm room and it'll
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: just hit them what you just said, like fifteen years on.
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: Oh goodness. So you mentioned the croat and watershed needs
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: the filtering and they're trying to avoid that at all
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: costs with the other watersheds. But the croat and water
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: supply when they built this filtering system. It costs three
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: point two billion dollars and it's under a golf course
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: in New Jersey.
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: Which is so appropriate. That's where the tainted water is
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: under a golf course in Jersey and Bedminster perhaps sure,
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: I don't know what that is, but it sounds right.
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: Oh, some people will get that one.
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: New York's like, hey, you Hicks, build a golf course
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: over this. New York just calls everybody else Hicks. And
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: that's right. They do.
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: When we can fly in, do they welcome Hicks?
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: So have we taken our second break yet.
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: No, we probably should though. This is a good time.
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: Okay, We're going to take another break, and we're going
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: to come back and explain what New York does do
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: to its water and whether or not it is a
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: secret ingredient in bagels and pizza.
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: Stuff. You should know, Josh and shuck stuff. You should know, all.
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: Right, Chuck. So one thing that you're gonna want to say.
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: If you're a New Yorker and you're boasting about your
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: tap water, there are some things you should know. Number one,
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: it's chlorinated. Number two, it's been run through a UV filter.
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: Even if it hasn't been filtered, filtered, there's still things
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: that are done to it. It's not like it's coming
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: straight out of the cat skills into your tap.
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they take it very seriously. Obviously. Here's a good
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: stat In one year, there are more than fifteen thousand
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: water samples taken an analy at the source. So this
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: is upstream. They have AI, well not AI or is
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: it AI?
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: There's AI involved somehow? There always is.
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: I always ask if it's AI. Want to I always
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: ask you? Because you know, sure, I know. Thanks to
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: the end of the World with Josh Clark.
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: Oh thanks for the plug.
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: Still available on iTunes, the iHeart podcast app or wherever
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: you find your podcast.
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: Wow, that wasn't just a plug, that was an AD.
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: So they have these robotic buoys that monitor the Kensico Reservoir,
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: one of the reservoirs that feeds down into New York.
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: And these things take one point nine million measurements a
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: year and wirelessly transmit that back to the Department of
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: Environmental Protection in New York.
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, which is pretty awesome. And they had a booy before,
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: but they had to remove it in winter because ice
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: would mess with it, and this new one apparently is
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: ice loving.
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah. They also if you walk down the street, there's
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: something like thirteen hundred, no sixty five, nine hundred and
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: sixty five little gray boxes that if you could open
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: up you would find a little sink and a faucet.
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: It's adorable, maybe a little sample size of loxatain soap.
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: And that's a water sampling station, it says nydep Department
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: of Environmental Protection, and scientists walk up to these things,
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: unlock them and take samples and test for all sorts
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: of different things to make sure that the water getting
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: to New York is good.
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it says more than that. It says New York
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: City Drinking Water Sampling Station on the front of it.
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: Oh wow, they really they really spell it out. Yeah,
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: I said Fisher free and O three stamped on.
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: There, so that you know they're testing. They take thirteen
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: hundred water samples a month. I'm not sure if you
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: said that, but they were a from these particular stations
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: and they do all kinds of tests. Are testing obviously
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: for turbidity, which is cloudiness, pH chlorine, bacteria, does it
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: stink like all kinds of tests that they're.
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: Doing, right, And usually the New York City water is
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: going to pass all these tests like it's there's not
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: going to be a problem. This is just a extra
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: little quality assurance that they're doing because by the time
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: it reaches these testing stations, that's where it's going to
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: the taps anyway, it's tapping into the tap water basically, right,
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: so that ten percent of water goes through a couple
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: extra steps that is that that the other ninety percent
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: doesn't go through. One of the first things it does
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: in a treatment plan is it's mixed with alum which
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: is a component of aluminum, right, and alum attracts organic
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: compounds and basically says, rise to the surface with me,
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: and it creates flock, which is a white, frothy sludge,
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: and all that is just skimmed off the top.
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this sounds so gross and it is, but like
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: in the end, you get your good water. The next
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: thing that happens is it flows through these giant water filters.
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: Day've put it as like these giant Brita filters. It's
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: essentially sort of the same thing. And this is just
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: going to further purify the water, passing through layers and
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: layers of stuff like sand and anthracite. And then comes
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: the ultra violet light that you referenced earlier, right.
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: Yes, and one hundred percent of New York's water is
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: sent through a UV filter because UV filters are really
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: good at disrupting reproduction of bacteria, and so all water
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: is apped. But that ninety percent of water that's not
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: filtered that goes through a separate UV filtering plant that's
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: built just for those, that's right, And that's where like
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: a billion gallons of water a day are z apped
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: with UV lights. But so all of that gets combined
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: together eventually and comes out your tap. And New Yorkers
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: drink it straight from the tap. Literally. It is very
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: bizarre because I don't know if it's a placebo effect
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: or what, but I feel like it does taste pretty
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: good for tap water. It does, but at the same time,
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: I typically don't drink just straight tapwater, so my frame
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: of reference isn't necessarily right there.
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: You want to hear something funny, Yeah, you know what
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: my brother's favorite water is and what it's probably just
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: a bit, but he claims it's true. What hose water?
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: Oh, I know what he's talking about.
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like when you're watering the car or watering the car.
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: When you're washing the car, here's right, grow car when
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: you're watering your mini, so it grows into an suv, right.
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: So I think the reason why Scott is onto something
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: is because when you're drinking from a hose, it's summertime
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: and it's hot.
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: Out, yeah, and you're probably working hard.
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: Maybe it definitely it definitely does taste different, for sure.
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: So when it comes to New York water, everyone says
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: it's the best in the country. There are rankings, actually,
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: and it is thirteen out of one hundred metro areas
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: in the US.
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: So it's not the best literally by definition, not the
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: best water in the cut.
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: You've got to move to Arlington, Texas if you want.
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: And this this was from ten years ago, but I'm
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: not sure what the current status is. Imagine Arlington's still
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: up there though.
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: Sure, but you're going to have to have a lot
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: more reasons than that to move to Arlington, Texas. Ouch
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: that one, I'm not taking that.
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: What are some of the problems though with New York water.
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: Well, there's two big problems. Turbidity, which you mentioned earlier,
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: which is sediment suspension in the water, which gives it
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: kind of a cloudy or darker, gritty kind of look,
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: which is it's not just that it looks bad, its
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: pathogens can cling to that sediment, so it's not something
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: you want suspended. Plus it also makes it much more
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: difficult to filter that stuff out. It's like extra work
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: that has to be done to get rid of that sediment.
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: And if you're not filtering your water to begin with,
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: that's kind of a problem. And then secondly, the other
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: one is nutrients. It's over nutrient meaning it's just packed
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: with ribal flavor.
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: Well, what it actually is is fertilizer runoff. You know,
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: those farmers are doing their best, but there is fertilizer
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: that goes downstream and runs into the watersheds, and phosphorus
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: is one of the biggest problems because farmers do fertilize
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: with phosphorus and if it runs off. The phosphorus alone
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: is not great because it can cause algae blooms and
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: stuff like that, and it can taste bad and stink.
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because when the algae dies, it decays and it
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: does not smell good.
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: No, it does not smell good. But a bigger problem, though,
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: is when you combine that with the chlorine. Because, like
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: we said, New York water is chlorinated and fluoridated. We
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: have the T shirts to prove.
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: It, right. I don't think we said it was fluoridated,
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: but yeah, everybody knows.
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah it's fluoridated. And when you combine that chlorine with
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: a phosphorus, it can create byproducts called disinfection byproducts, and
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: that is no good at all.
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: No, those are nasty. They're called d bps and they
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: are basically like chemicals that are accidentally made from sanitizing water.
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: And not just with chlorine, but chlorine chlorine. There's a
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: bunch of different stuff that they use to disinfect water,
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: and all of them can combine with organic compounds to
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: create really just nasty stuff like carcinages or carcinogens. Some
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: can produce miscarriages. It's just really really bad stuff that
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: can be produced in the drinking water.
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: Chloroform is one of those byproducts.
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, which is why New Yorkers frequently faint when they're
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: drinking tapwater.
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: But this all sounds super scary New York City. They are.
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: They have I think there are eight to known contaminants,
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: but they are still apparently well under the legal limit,
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: depending on what you think about how the legal limits
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: are set.
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: Up for it, right, exactly, it's a good caveat.
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: But New York City drinking water is thirty point nine
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: parts per billion chloroform and the national average is eleven.
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: So they're way higher on chloroform. But as far as
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: all of those DBPs total, they're far below the legal
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: limit and just a little bit above average nationally.
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: Right, And then the total number of DBPs that they
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: have is actually less than those in Arlington.
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: So interesting.
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: Chew on that Arlington.
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: That's right, Chew on that bad pizza.
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: Speaking of chewing, Chuck and pizza. Let's just answer this question.
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: Is New York City's water the key ingredient to New
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: York City bagels and pizza? H?
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: I think, I mean, you can't definitively say, but I
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: think it does have something to do with it. For sure.
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: It's got to because science is involved. So here's the thing.
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: The water from the Catskills and from the Delaware is
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: naturally soft, meaning that it's lowing calcium and magnesium. Where
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: do you fall on loving softer hard water? I'm a
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: hard water guy, same here man.
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: When I lived in Arizona, they had soft water where
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: I lived in my sister's house that I lived in,
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: and most of the houses had water softening or I
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: guess hardening units or whatever in the house.
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because you can't feel clean, like you never feel
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: like you got the shampoo or the soap off. It's awful.
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: It's just awful.
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: Does anyone like soft water?
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: I don't know, weirdo's probably.
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: I mean hard water. Sorry, no, I had it all backwards.
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: Okay, So so you like soft water.
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's why I actually, that's why I misspoke. They
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: had water softeners in Arizona because the water was hard
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: New York water is soft.
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: I like soft, Okay, I like hard water typically because
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: I feel like I'm clean afterward. But water like just
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: the New York water is fine with me. But a
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: softened like a chemically softened water, I can't stand.
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: Oh really, yes, interesting.
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: But New York's is naturally soft, so it doesn't have calcium, magnesium,
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: or it's very low in those things comparatively, and that
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: actually has an effect on taste, like calcium and magnesium
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: can provide like a bitter taste to water. So there's
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: one thing that they're saying, like, Okay, the dough isn't
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: going to taste naturally bitter because of the calcium magnesium.
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: That's something that is something, and it also interacts with
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: the flour. If you're going to make a bagel or
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: a biali or pizza crust, sure you can be or
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: you know a lot of things when you're baking, but
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: those are the big three. In New York. You're going
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: to be using flour and water as your base for
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: your dough and hard water. The minerals in those tapwater
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: are going to fortify the gluten and they're going to
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: make it tough and less flexible. You don't want it
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: too soft, though, because it'll have the opposite effect. It
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: will be gooey and you won't be able to work
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: it as well. Right, And apparently the American Chemical Society
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: says New York City tap water is the Goldilocks of
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: bagel water.
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: It is just right yep, not too hard, not too soft,
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: just perfect for a begel and for a pizza. And
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: that that American Chemical Society quote came from a Smithsonian
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: article and they went on to say, probably though, it's
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: actually the techniques that New Yorkers use to make bagels.
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: Like they poach the bagel dough first, like they boil it.
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: That's the only way to do a bagel. Sure it's boiled,
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: it's not a bagel.
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: No it's not.
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: It's like a bake donut. It's not a donut basically.
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: And then they also will they'll let the yeast sit
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: for a little while to make it for mint, which
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: creates volatile flavor compounds, so it just tastes better. They're saying,
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: probably those are the reasons why New Yorkers make better
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: bagels or pizza. And it's not really the water. The
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: water just contributes a very small amount.
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: I think it's all those things.
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: Why not? No one can say for certain, so let's
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: just say yes, it is exactly things. Well, if you
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: want to know more about New York City's tap water,
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: go on to New York City and try their tap water.
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: And since I said that it's time for listener mail everybody.
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this house rolling. And we talked about
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: tepeing houses. Yep, love the podcast. Guys, just finish up
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: trick or treating, and you were talking about rolling houses.
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: I grew up in Franklin, Tennessee, where we used to
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: roll houses all the time. In Franklin, Tennessee, for people
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: don't know, is where a lot of big shot Nashville
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: big wigs live because you can buy a huge house
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: with lots of land. That was Chuck speaking right. Funny
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: thing though, guys, I'm back to being Brandon. Okay, funny
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: thing though, guys. My neighbor was Brad Paisley. There was
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: a couple of years before his first Grammy award. And
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: once we found this out, we knew that we had
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: to get them. So my sister and I gathered all
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: of our friends dressed in black and snow out to
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: roll this country. Music Stars house. We were halfway through
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: the job when his freaking tour bus rolled up on us.
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: At first, we all ran away frightened, but we were
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: pretty much caught in the act. Nowhere to go. He
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: got off the bus and was super nice about the
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: whole thing. Actually, he gave us a quick tour of
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: the tour bus, chatted us up for a little while.
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: We even cleaned up the little bit of mess we
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: had made, and left starstruck. I highly doubt he remembers
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: that night at all, but my friends and I will
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: certainly never forget anyway. That's all I got. Guys, have
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: a spooky Halloween. That is from Brandon Saunders.
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: That is very nice. Brandon, thanks a lot for that email,
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: and hats off to Brad Paisley for being so cool.
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: He doesn't take his hat off, but.
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: All right, exactly, but also how about just a hat
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: tip then?
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah? Or actually I was thinking Kenny Chesney because he's bald.
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: None of those guys take their hats off, dude. So
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: but also he hangs out with Peyton Manning, which means
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: that he must be a good guy. Right, Oh yeah,
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: isn't Peyton a good dude?
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: Sure? I'm just tired of seeing him on my TV.
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: Oh that's not gonna app anytime soon. Pretty soon you'll
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: see them in augmented reality, and you're going to say
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: everywhere you go, like it or not, Charles. Okay, Well,
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: if you want to get in touch with this, like
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: Brad Paisley did, you can go on to stuff youshould
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: Know dot com and check out our social links, and
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: you can also send us a good old fashioned email,
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: wrap it up, spank it on the bottom, with it
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: some good old country goodness, and send it off to
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.