Brooklyn Botanic Garden's water-saving project
NEW YORK (FOX 5 NEWS) - Think of it as a big, $17 million plumbing project that will shrink the Brooklyn Botanic Garden's annual water intake by as much as 95 percent.
Right now, thanks to century old technology the garden uses a hefty 22 million gallons of water every year to fill a one-acre pool in its Japanese hill and pond garden. The water then flows into a small pond and eventually winds up in the city sewer.
Under the new system, the botanic garden will capture rainwater and recirculate it into a pond. And that won't just help the garden in conserving water. It will also help the city by easing the stress on its sewer system with the help of satellite technology and computer modeling to predict storms.
The project will cut the amount of water released into the sewer system from 27 million gallons a year to 8 million.