At Silver Lake Park, long-hidden sights are now visible for the first time in years.
That’s because the water in the park’s twin reservoirs has evaporated to a stunning point.
You can tread on ground that’s usually submerged in the reservoir basins at Silver Lake Park.Tom Wrobleski/Staten Island Advance
Adventurous visitors who descend into the reservoir basins can now tread on ground that’s typically submerged. They can get views usually available only to those in a rowboat or kayak.
Detritus litters the now-exposed ground below the reservoir bridge, including rusted pipes, old bottles, cans, a TV remote control, even an old cellphone.
Old bottles and other debris are now visible due to low water levels at Silver Lake Park that have stunned Staten Islanders.Tom Wrobleski/Staten Island Advance
A gated structure dug into the rocky hillside contains what looks to be a large discharge pipe and is usually under water. But the dropping water levels have now exposed the structure, including its significantly rusted gate.
A once submerged shoreline structure, with a rusted gate, is now visible as water levels drop at Silver Lake Park.Tom Wrobleski/Staten Island Advance
“I’ve never seen it this low and I’ve been coming here since I was a little kid,” said a parkgoer named Sven, 56, who didn’t want to give his last name. “I used to come here at 10 years old and see people jumping into the lake.”
He said, “I hope this means that they’re going to be doing some work here and that they’re going to fix this up and make it look really beautiful and refill it. That would be nice.”
Rusted pipes are seen on usually submerged ground near reservoir pump house in Silver Lake Park.Tom Wrobleski/Staten Island Advance
A spokesperson from the city Department of Environmental Protection said that lower rainfall amounts and higher temperatures in recent months have increased evaporation and reduced the water level in the Silver Lake Reservoir.
The spokesperson said that the only way to raise the water level would be to release millions of gallons of drinking water into it — water that would be lost forever since Silver Lake is no longer part of the water supply system.
Parkgoers say that they’ve never seen water levels this low at Silver Lake Park before.Tom Wrobleski/Staten Island Advance
The spokesperson said, “In light of last year’s drought and this summer’s heat waves, which have driven up water consumption across the city, DEP’s top priority is to conserve as much water as possible in our upstate reservoirs in case this valuable supply is needed later on. Therefore, for now, we do not plan to refill Silver Lake immediately as the impact of its current level is purely aesthetic.”
The spokesperson said that DEP “will continue to monitor conditions as we move into the fall. Autumn rains may naturally replenish Silver Lake, or if our upstate reservoirs receive substantial rainfall early in the season, we may be able to confidently allocate water to refill it.”
Once known as Fresh Pond, the lake was drained in 1913 and turned into a working reservoir by the Board of Water Supply.
Water from the Ashokan Reservoir in upstate New York reached the Silver Lake reservoir on Oct. 25, 1917 after traveling three days from the Catskills. The new water supply supplemented springs already feeding the reservoir.
But the water that we see at the reservoir today is no longer used for drinking.
The continued encroachment of a developing Island and pollution from seagulls forced the city to build two, 50-million gallon underground water storage tanks at Silver Lake Reservoir to protect the water supply.
This isn’t the first time Silver Lake has faced low water levels — a 2015 report by the New York Post highlighted similar concerns. The current conditions appear more extreme, however.
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