Brooklyn mural: Water is the life of NYC

Brooklyn students and mentors spent this past summer learning the art of supply and demand — of water, that is. The project, a collaboration between New York City Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and the Groundswell Community Mural Project, brought artists of all ages together to better understand what it takes to bring water to New York’s taps.

“We are so fortunate that we have some of the best drinking water in the world,” DEP Commissioner Emily Lloyd told local news station NY1. “It comes down from the Catskill Mountains. It doesn’t have to be filtered. It comes down by gravity so it doesn’t have to burn oil to pump it to get it here. So it is a very sustainable system that we’re very fortunate that was given to us by the people who worked on it over the past 200 years.”

The mural highlights the journey water makes through both history and geology. Lead artist Nicole Schulman says the students with whom she worked “definitely learned a lot about the science of the water cycle, where it comes from, that you just don’t turn on the tap and then the water happens.

“Water is a precious resource,” she points out. “It takes a lot of effort of people who are risking their lives even to bring it here. So the kids really learned to respect water as a resource that it is not always going to be here if we take it for granted.”

Read more and view the newscast here.

Source: NY1