Our Water System

Our water system serves approximately 30,000 people through 6,675 service connections. We have more than 75 miles of water mains ranging from 4 inches in diameter all the way up to 30 inches in diameter. More than 800 fire hydrants and approximately 3,500 gate valves are used to turn off water mains in cases of water main breaks or other emergency situations.

2022 Water Production

The total drinking water produced in 2022 was approximately 1.2 billion gallons. The daily average of water treated and distributed was 3.04 million gallons and the highest single-day production was 4.22 million gallons. The amount of drinking water delivered to customers in 2022 was approximately 649 million gallons. The difference between the drinking water produced and delivered can be attributed to several factors including, but not limited to, water main flushing, firefighting operations, water main and water service leaks, unauthorized use, and other nonmetered uses (filter backwash, street sweeping, vac-con operations, etc.).

City-Wide Leak Detection Survey

The City of Newburgh Water Department annually conducts a city-wide leak detection survey. The leaks detected by this survey, are promptly repaired which prevents wasted water from leaks and helps continue our efforts to keep costs down for our customers.

New Drinking Usage Meters

Additionally, the city has replaced older water meters and installed new radio-reading remote devices citywide to help record water usage more accurately and to help reduce our percentage of unaccounted for water.  With this new technology, the Water Department can read the water meters in the entire city within several hours which also allows for more frequent meter readings per billing cycle. This remote read technology helps the City inform our residents of high water usages typically caused by leaks on the customers individual water service or internal plumbing. 

Drinking Source Water

The City primarily obtained its source water from the City-owned reservoir at Washington Lake until May 2016, when per and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) were discovered in the reservoir water and more stringent PFOS and PFOA contaminant level goals were imposed by the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the New York State Department of Health.  Since May of 2016, the City of Newburgh has relied on its backup supplies of source water consisting mainly of the New York City Catskill Aqueduct

Water Supply Inspections

The Orange County Health Department is required to conduct inspections of public water supplies on a regular basis. Such water supply inspections are required to cover the following topics: Sources, Treatment, Distribution, Finished Water Storage, Pumps, Monitoring, Reporting & Data Verification, Management & Operations, and Operator Compliance.

The latest inspection of the City of Newburgh’s drinking water facilities was conducted on October 27, 2022.   The inspection results concluded that the drinking water filtration plant and the drinking water distribution system are very well operated. A copy of the latest inspection report is available on the City’s website.