Whodunit?
A sudden drop in the water level at a Staten Island reservoir has exposed a sinister secret — a pistol and a pair of brass knuckles wrapped up in a mysterious package that has one local scratching his head.
“You can see somebody had bundled something up and taped it to this rock with like a mile of tape, which piqued my interest about it,” said Chris Sammon, an avid fisherman and Staten Island native who searched the newly exposed Silver Lake reservoir.
“I figured it was probably either somebody’s pet that they had given some kind of weird water burial to, or it was probably a weapon of some sort,” he told The Post. “So I was a little concerned that it was going to be some decomposed animal, but luckily it was not.”
Actually, it was the more troubling stash — which he quickly turned over to a nearby cop in case it was key evidence missing from a police station in some long-forgotten crime, he said.
“I would’ve kept the brass knuckles, said Sammon, who first shared the story in the Staten Island Advance.
The creepy bundle was just one of the bizarre items that surfaced after the waters in the popular lake dropped more than 8 feet in the past year as part of a city-led water conservation effort.
The storied fishing pool is filled with just 239.5 million gallons, as of Dec. 17 readings — nearly half of its 400-million-gallon capacity.
That’s down from 361.5 million gallons last October, making for an 8.5-foot drop.
“That I can remember, that’s definitely the lowest. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it getting close to that level. Every year it seems to go low, but not like that,” Sammon said.
He is one of the many visitors who made unsanctioned visits to the fenced-off reservoir in the past year since the city Department of Environmental Protection stopped topping it off with fresh water.
At the time of the decision, the Big Apple was suffering through a heat wave that threatened to diminish drinking water, much like last year’s historic drought.
Despite suffering the driest summer in two decades, the five boroughs were spared from a drought — though 20 other Empire State counties, including neighboring Nassau and Suffolk, were subject to a drought watch.
Even as of Dec. 24, state reservoirs are only at 74.5% — which is more than 13% lower than normal.
“From the Cannonsville Reservoir far upstate to the southernmost tip of Staten Island, DEP carefully manages the city’s reserves of drinking water,” a spokesperson for the agency told The Post in a statement
“DEP’s top priority is conserving as much water as possible in our upstate reservoirs to ensure this valuable supply is available when needed,” the statement added. “For that reason, we do not plan to refill Silver Lake immediately, as its purpose is purely aesthetic.”
While the DEP warned that Silver Lake is off limits for beachcombers, plenty of Staten Islanders couldn’t resist poking around the depleted lake to go mining for treasure.
Sammon went snooping in August in hopes of finding century-old wine glass bottles, but instead found more than he bargained for.
While the pistol and knuckles might be the most interesting items to turn up so far, others have reported finding old phones, a golf ball graveyard with misfires from a neighboring golf course and, unfortunately, troves of trash.
Recently, a pipe that is typically completely submerged began to be visible, with the DEP telling the Advance it is “part of the reservoir’s infrastructure.”
While there are no plans to fill the reservoir for now, the DEP indicated it might replenish the supply if upstate reservoirs are sufficiently filled by rainfall or snowpack.
In the meantime, officials warned not to prowl the new Silver Lake shores.
Additional reporting by Jorge Fitz-Gibbon
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