Key to Civilization
They say a number of civilizations that have faded into the history books have done so because of one thing, water.
After attempting to follow the source of the New York City water supply, I'm convinced that our country will do anything to keep its water flowing. New York City has bought up thousands of acres of land in the Catskills to protect the source of the city's drinking water. Getting photographs of these giant reservoirs and all that goes into them has proven tricky because security it tight. I tried hard to get into a sewage treatment plant today but was lectured about the security precautions after September 11th. I understand the concern to protect water, but poop?
So with no good way of photographing the reservoirs, I climbed Wittenburg Mountain and made this image of Ashokan Reservoir. At full capacity the reservoir can hold approximately 122.9 billion gallons of water. According to a sign I read at another reservoir, NYC uses more than 1 billion gallons of water a day.