How NYC’s Sewage System Treats 1.3 Billion Gallons Of Wastewater - NYC Revealed

Across the five boroughs of New York City, an estimated 8.3 million people flush their toilets multiple times a day. Look at all that crap. It seems sane. Everything from fecal matter to Clorox wipes passes through the city's elaborate sewer network, creating 1.3

billion

gallons

of

wastewater

. per day this is the bane of my existence this deluge of

sewage

travels through some combination of the city's 7,500 miles of sewer pipes, 135,000 storm drains, 96

sewage

pump stations and 14 treatment plants that need to be disposed of, but even with the

system

's impressive ability to maintain transfer and treat all this

wastewater

, it sometimes becomes overwhelmed with feces, everything else that is flushed down the toilet just sits here and you can see the impacts.

This is the story of the Big Apple's historic and complex sewer

system

and how it is evolving to withstand the combined pressure of 21st century superstorms, aging infrastructure, and the rise of Clorox flushing, this is disgusting, no Whatever you do When New York City was founded in the early 17th century, concerns about disease caused by waste left on the streets led the city to look for a more sanitary disposal method that needed to give rise to the first system of underground city sewer dug in the middle of a wide street and covered with wood that helped drain waste from the neighborhood streets, soon vermin and disease spread throughout the city and residents became increasingly vocal about Their distaste for the lack of privacy in residential latrines was not until 1849, after a major citywide cholera outbreak, that city leaders finally committed to building a fully functional sewer system. 70 miles of sewers were installed in the first five years, approximately 40 percent of New York City uses a more modern sewer technology called a separate sewer system.

Pipes like these transport wastewater directly to a corresponding treatment plant for further processing, while separate pipes like these transport stormwater directly to local waterways. The other 60 percent of New York City. It is based on that original 19th century sewer system. It is called a combined sewer system. It uses a single pipe or a combined sewer to carry wastewater and stormwater together to one of 14 wastewater treatment plants like it, so this plant in Newtown Creek collects wastewater. washes bathrooms, showers of about a million people in brooklyn queens parts of brooklyn and queens parts of manhattan and that water is very dirty so we take that water and through a series of processes we treat it to clean water standards and produce products valuable poop urine toilet paper vomit all I want to see this is disposable wipes that we take and put them in a landfill it's garbage so there are four things we want to see in the sewer system poop urine toilet paper and we will also take vomit in the waters surrounding New York City is now very clean due to the performance of the wastewater resource recovery facility.

This plant will consume up to 700 million

gallons

in one day as wastewater flows through the reclamation facility. The treatment process begins right now. Let's go to the dirty area. detect the screens, this is what we do, we deal with wastewater, we produce clean water, so this is the raw influence you see coming in right here, the bar screens continually move in and out of the flow to remove waste big, that's falling there. a rake, that rake will go to the bottom of that deep tank and pull out the pads and the tampons and the condoms, other things that people shouldn't throw away.

Okay, this is what people flush down the toilet, this is the nightmare. of my existence oh here comes another one this one is white does he look familiar? I wouldn't be surprised if the box said "disposable." This stuff will come out of your toilet, it won't disintegrate like toilet paper does, sanitary products won't. rinse that out, but the bar grates will pick up anything that's in the sewer system, we'll pick up trash from the street when it rains, those rats, sometimes I heard that someone once found a gun because someone opened a sewer and threw a gun in there in the next primary.

Treatment begins now. One of the reasons this is wastewater resource recovery is because we have wastewater, but we are creating resources from it. That layer of actual foam coming out of the top is very rich in organic compounds. It has a lot of fats. We are looking for. To convert that into green energy, we're really boosting gas production from these really cool digesters, so people in this neighborhood are cooking with gas that's made from their excrement and food waste. It's incredible, up there, watch your steps. Clear day, it's a little dirty, but if you look inside, the solids reaching the digesters are heated to your actual body temperature, 98 degrees anaerobic, without oxygen, they work just like your stomach as the wastewater continues to travel through of the facilities' machines. air to help natural bacteria consume nutrients and organic material from here, the wastewater slows down again and gravity deposits the heavy bacteria at the bottom of these large tanks.

Any remaining bacteria are then killed in chlorination tanks through a chemical process called oxidation, so this simply works. like a forest, if a bear poops in the forest over time, with the air, the soil, there's bacteria around it, it will decompose and become part of the soil matrix, so we're basically doing the same thing here , except we're speeding it up. Quickly through a secondary clarifier the now dead bacteria settle out of the water and clean water is released. The sewage treatment plant here in Newtown Creek does a tremendous job cleaning sewage, but it doesn't work when it rains in a dry place.

On a day like today, everything in this blue area goes to the wastewater treatment plant. On a rainy day, the system becomes saturated when it rains. Anything you flush down the toilet, leave in the sink or shower, is most likely bypassing the treatment plant. and coming straight here, a cso is a combined sewer overflow. CSO events happen about 40 times a year on average throughout New York City, so Newtown Creek is this little tidal tributary of the East River and we have all kinds of marine wildlife here, which is I think it's always surprising. people, crabs, shrimp, so yeah, cormorants get spooked pretty easily, it's the water, although it goes up and down with the tides, there's no real back and forth current, so when you flush the CSO because the water is so stagnant here has lasting impacts. so let's sneak into this entry, this is what is known as Mass Pet Creek.

The unfortunate primary function of this inlet is to service this combined sewer overflow which we will discuss later. Fortunately, we are here after a week. dry weather so this thing hasn't been flushed the sign is a little obscured but this is known as ncq77 this is one of the largest sewer outfalls in the entire city this is over 300 million gallons a year of wastewater without try to come out of this pipe and you see all these bubbles that are coming up, so this is all organic matter that is decomposing here, creating gases like methane and hydrogen sulfide, which is what we smell right now.

The sewer hasn't overflowed in probably over a week at this point, but the impacts are very severe because the amount of sewage coming out of here and the very stagnant conditions, all that sewage comes out and just sits here, I mean, it's disgusting feces, everything else that goes down the toilet just sits here and you can see it. Due to the impacts, it can be very frustrating and difficult to work on issues like fixing the CSO issue. The plan will be to dig really large underground tunnels that will hold rainwater during a rain event until the rain is over and then pump it to the wastewater treatment plant.

Overall, New York City has made significant progress in water quality. water in the city and most of the time you can swim in places like the east river and the hudson river, simply put, don't go swimming or touch the water after a rain event New York City may not be Known as the cleanest city in the world, in fact it's not even close, but even this city with its 8.3 million inhabitants could not function at the capacity it has without its existing wastewater treatment system that depends on the teamwork. Between sanitation workers and conscientious city residents, sometimes when people complain, I say yes, I know it's a smelly operation, we have a lot of systems to deal with it, but we take care of your poop for you.