Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant

[1] Since 2010, its eight metallic "digester eggs", which are 140 feet (43 meters) tall and dramatically illuminated with blue light at night, have made it a local landmark,[2] particularly to motorists on several nearby roadways in the New York City boroughs of Brooklyn, Queens, and Manhattan.

[3] The plant's unusual public amenities, which include a visitors' center with a manmade waterfall, a nature walk along the Newtown Creek, and the dramatic aesthetic elements, all stem from a long-term upgrade project that was begun by the city in 1998 and is scheduled for completion in 2014.

Polshek worked with three environmental engineering firms, Greeley and Hansen, Hazen and Sawyer, and Malcolm Pirnie.

[1] The Newtown Creek Nature Walk is outside the perimeter fence of the plant and is thus open daily during daylight hours.

[6] The plant serves an area with a population of just over 1 million people in Lower Manhattan and nearby parts of Brooklyn and Queens.

[12] When that occurs When sewage loads exceed the capacity of the Newtown Creek Sewage Treatment Facility trash, pesticides, petroleum products, PCBs, mercury, cadmium, lead, pathogenic microorganisms, and nutrients which reduce the dissolved oxygen content of the water are dumped into Newtown Creek.

CSOs can be triggered by as little as a tenth of an inch of rain.Essentially anything that gets washed into the gutters from the street, anything that households and businesses flush down the toilet or dump down the drain, has a fair chance of being expelled directly into Newtown Creek or New York Harbor untreated.

[13] The city requested a postponement of the 2013 deadline in consideration of its plan to build a fully compliant Newtown Creek plant by 2022.