The Baldwin Pipeline, circa 1911

In 1889 the city of Brooklyn was faced with a shortage of  fresh water supply for it's rapidly increasing population. What Brooklyn came up with was a 161 mile-long pipeline system with five reservoirs running through what is now Nassau County. One pond near Baldwin (then called Milburn) provided 20 million gallons of water to Brooklyn.  This photograph shows the 72" pipe near Grand Avenue.  In 1927 Sunrise Highway was built through Baldwin following the pipeline route.  By the 1930's Brooklyn's exporting of the water had seriously damaged the communities east of it.  Water tables dropped and the flow of fresh water into local streams and into the bays decreased dramatically.  As a result the Oyster industry (In 1885 an industry worth  $100,000 in the town of Freeport (Raynorsville) alone, which is next door to Baldwin) was permanently damaged along all the south shore of Long Island. In 1933 Nassau County restricted the water flow to Brooklyn, but the oyster industry never recovered. -  (Photograph in the collection of the Baldwin Historical Society & Museum ).

03/25/2006