Croton Water Filtration Plant

The Croton Water Filtration Plant, is a water treatment facility which was completed in 2015 at a cost of over $3 billion,[6][3] was built 160 feet (49 m) under Van Cortlandt Park's Mosholu Golf Course.[7]

Croton Water Filtration Plant
Alternative names	Croton Filtration Plant
Etymology	Croton River
General information
Status	Complete
Type	Water treatment facility
Location	Mosholu Golf Course, Van Cortlandt Park
Town or city	The Bronx
Country	US
Coordinates	40.886005°N 73.878808°W / 40.886005; -73.878808
Named for	Croton Watershed
Construction started	2007
Completed	2015
Cost	$3.2 billion USD[1] [2] [3]
Client	New York City Department of Parks and Recreation
Owner	City of New York
Management	New York City Department of Environmental Protection
Grounds	12 acres (4.9 ha)[1]
Design and construction
Architecture firm	below grade water treatment plant: Hazen and Sawyer and Metcalf and Eddy[4] above grade: Grimshaw Architects[5]
Developer	Skanska / Tully Construction joint venture[1]
Other designers	Emerson Process Management[1]
Other information
Public transit access	New York City Subway: Woodlawn New York City Bus: local buses, BxM4 express buses Bee-Line Bus System: 4, 20, and 21

The Sachkerah Woods Playground, located at Van Cortlandt Park's southeast corner

The 830 by 550 feet (250 by 170 m) plant, which is bigger than Yankee Stadium,[6] was built after a 1998 lawsuit by the presidential administration of Bill Clinton, which Mayor Rudy Giuliani settled under the condition that the City of New York would build the plant by 2006. The city had been studying possible sites for such a plant for more than 20 years in both the Bronx and Westchester. The plant was needed in order to cut the pollution from the Croton River's watershed, which fed about ten percent of the New York City water system[8][9] and had been proposed for filtration for the past several decades.[10] One of the plant's other functions would be to reduce the city's dependence on the Catskill Mountains and Delaware River watersheds, which are only minimally filtered.[11]

The filtration plant was originally supposed to cost $800 million,[3] but experienced delays and a ballooning cost because of uproars from the local community,[7] which required the city to propose alternate sites for such a plant.[11]

To lessen the disruption caused by the plant's construction, in 2010 the city used mitigation funds from the construction of the plant to restore the Van Cortlandt Park Parade Ground.[12][13] The Sachkerah Woods Playground, located at the park's southeast corner near the Mosholu Golf Course, was also built using Croton mitigation funds.[14] The new plant allowed the city to provide greater capacity for its water system.[6] This was especially important since the city was planning to shut off part of an aqueduct from the Delaware River in 2022 or 2023,[6] allowing the completion of a tunnel that would bypass a leaking section of the aqueduct in Newburgh, New York.[15]