The Schoharie Reservoir is a

reservoir A reservoir (; ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam, usually built to water storage, store fresh water, often doubling for hydroelectric power generation. Reservoirs are created by controlling a watercourse that drains an existing body of wa ...

in the

New York City water supply system The New York City water supply system is a combination of Aqueduct (water supply), aqueducts, reservoirs, and tunnels which supplies fresh water to New York City. With three major water systems (New Croton Aqueduct, Croton, Catskill Aqueduct, Ca ...

located in the

Catskill Mountains The Catskill Mountains, also known as the Catskills, are a physiographic province and subrange of the larger Appalachian Mountains, located in southeastern New York. As a cultural and geographic region, the Catskills are generally defined a ...

New York State New York, also called New York State, is a state in the northeastern United States. Bordered by New England to the east, Canada to the north, and Pennsylvania and New Jersey to the south, its territory extends into both the Atlantic Ocean and ...

. One of 19 reservoirs in the system, it was created by impounding

Schoharie Creek Schoharie Creek is a river in New York (state), New York that flows north from the foot of Indian Head Mountain (New York), Indian Head Mountain in the Catskill Mountains, Catskills through the Schoharie Valley to the Mohawk River. It is twice ...

, and feeds via the Ashoken Reservoir into the Catskill Aqueduct. These waters route to the Kensico Reservoir in Westchester County, thence to New York City. Portions of the reservoir lie in the towns of Conesville and Gilboa in Schoharie County, Roxbury in Delaware County, and Prattsville in Greene County.

History

Even after the Ashokan Reservoir was created as New York City's thirteenth reservoir and the Kensico Reservoir was completed soon after to store its water, the water supply was still insufficient for the city's growing population. A search for a new location led to the village of Gilboa, New York, which was purchased and its residents evacuated through condemnation. Site preparation destroyed most of the area's trees and buildings up to the water line. The dam was built during the early 1920s out of stone blocks. Flooding was completed in 1924. The village of Gilboa was relocated to the west; traces of it can still be seen during a

drought A drought is a period of drier-than-normal conditions.Douville, H., K. Raghavan, J. Renwick, R.P. Allan, P.A. Arias, M. Barlow, R. Cerezo-Mota, A. Cherchi, T.Y. Gan, J. Gergis, D. Jiang, A. Khan, W. Pokam Mba, D. Rosenfeld, J. Tierney, ...

Description

The reservoir impounds a portion of the

, a tributary of the

Mohawk River The Mohawk River is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed October 3, 2011 river in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. It is the largest tributary of the Hudson R ...

, itself a tributary of the

Hudson River The Hudson River, historically the North River, is a river that flows from north to south largely through eastern New York (state), New York state. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains at Henderson Lake (New York), Henderson Lake in the ...

. The northernmost of the New York City system, it is located 36 miles (58 km) southwest of Albany and roughly 110 miles (180 km) northwest of

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

. It lies at the southern end of Schoharie County, the northeastern end of Delaware County, and at the northwestern end of Greene County. It neighbors such towns as Gilboa, Prattsville, and Conesville. The reservoir consists of a single 6-mile (9.6-km) basin, and holds of water at full capacity, making it one of the smaller New York City reservoirs. Put into service in 1926, the Schoharie Reservoir provides nine million people with approximately 15-16 percent of their annual water supply needs. It is also the smaller of the two reservoirs which, along with the Ashokan Reservoir, in

Olive, New York Olive is a town in Ulster County, New York, United States. The town is west of Kingston, New York, and is inside the Catskill Park. The population was 4,226 at the 2020 census. History The town was settled ''circa'' 1740. The town of Olive w ...

, feed the Catskill Aqueduct and make up the New York City Catskill Water System. Overflow from the Schoharie Reservoir tops the Gilboa Dam and runs back into Schoharie Creek, ultimately flowing into the Hudson River. Water from the Schoharie Reservoir flows to New York City through the -long Shandaken Tunnel, and empties into the Esopus Creek at Shandaken. Another 11 miles (18 km) down the Esopus it empties into the Ashokan Reservoir. From there water enters the 92-mile (147 km) Catskill Aqueduct to the Kensico Reservoir, thence to New York City.

Gilboa Dam

The high

concrete Concrete is a composite material composed of aggregate bound together with a fluid cement that cures to a solid over time. It is the second-most-used substance (after water), the most–widely used building material, and the most-manufactur ...

and stone brick Gilboa Dam in Schoharie County was completed in 1926. Over time the dam eroded to where it posed a potential threat to those living downstream. In December 2005, the New York City Department of Environmental Protection began a $24 million project to bring the dam up to New York State safety standards. Beginning in December 2006 eighty post-tensioned anchoring cables were installed through holes drilled in the dam into bedrock below, bringing it up to state standards. During this overhaul, residents nearby complained that their tap water had turned a brownish color, perhaps due to the intense drilling into the earth to anchor the dam. Gilboa Ruins 2

Schoharie County planned and authorized the Gilboa Dam Failure Outdoor Warning System, which was installed by Mid-State Communications. New York City paid for the system consisting of twenty sirens stretching from the Town of Gilboa to the Town of Esperance, ending at the Montgomery County line. A larger, full-scale overhaul of the Gilboa Dam began in the summer of 2011 after five years of planning. Estimated to cost $350 million, the project will add significant mass to the dam, install floodgates, and include a large tunnel bypass allowing water to be released safely from the reservoir into Schoharie Creek. A citizens advocacy group, called Dam Concerned Citizens, Inc., was formed to monitor structural vulnerabilities in order to ensure the safety of those living downstream. After a minor

earthquake An earthquakealso called a quake, tremor, or tembloris the shaking of the Earth's surface resulting from a sudden release of energy in the lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, from those so weak they ...

on August 27, 2011, was recorded in the region and in response to the

2011 Virginia earthquake On August 23, 2011, a moment magnitude scale, magnitude 5.8 earthquake hit the Piedmont (United States), Piedmont region of the U.S. state of Virginia at 1:51:04 p.m. EDT. The epicenter, in Louisa County, Virginia, Louisa County, was nor ...

which occurred on August 23, 2011, and was felt as far north as

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

New York Governor The governor of New York is the head of government of the U.S. state of New York. The governor is the head of the executive branch of New York's state government and the commander-in-chief of the state's military forces. The governor ha ...

Andrew Cuomo Andrew Mark Cuomo ( , ; born December 6, 1957) is an American politician and lawyer who served as the 56th governor of New York from 2011 until his resignation in 2021. A member of the Democratic Party and son of former governor Mario Cuomo, ...

ordered an infrastructure inspection which included the Gilboa Dam. Governor Cuomo visited the dam on the morning of August 28, 2011, to report that officials had discovered no impacts to the dam from recent seismic activity. On August 28, 2011, after receiving as much as of rainfall from

Hurricane Irene Hurricane Irene was a large and destructive tropical cyclone which affected much of the Caribbean and East Coast of the United States during late August 2011. The ninth tropical cyclone naming, named storm, first hurricane, and first major ...

, the Gilboa Dam was placed in a level B situation. Though the dam was intact, the heavy upstream rainfall from the hurricane prompted officials to issue an evacuation order for downstream residents, including a mandatory evacuation of the towns of Middleburgh and Schoharie. The evacuation order was due to the heavy rainfall and not due to a dam failure.

Recreation

No motor boats are allowed on the reservoir; non-motorized boats that have been steam-cleaned and that have required tags may be used in the reservoir during the summer.Boating
New York City Department of Environmental Protection. Accessed October 4, 2023. "All boaters must obtain a free DEP Access Permit and all boats must be steam cleaned by a DEP certified steam cleaning vendor before being placed on a resevoir ic... Recreational boating (boating for non-anglers) is allowed on Cannonsville, Pepacton, Neversink and Schoharie Reservoirs during the summer.... Non-motorized kayaks, canoes, rowboats, and sculls with the appropriate recreational boat tags may be used."

References

External links