By Bill Parry
When the wind blows south over Bowery Bay, a foul stench annoys residents of the Astoria neighborhoods of Steinway and Ditmars, a state of affair that has gone on for nearly 80 years. What they smell is not the body of water wedged between Rikers Island and LaGuardia Airport, but the Bowery Bay Wastewater Treatment Plant just north of Berrian Boulevard.
City Councilman Costa Constantinides (D-Astoria) joined City Department of Environmental Protection Acting Commissioner Steven Lawitts Monday to announce that work has been completed on the installation of aluminum covers and odor control units on each of the four sludge tanks located at the facility. The $3 million project captures odors emanating from the plant and removes them through an activated carbon filtration process.
Work on the project began in 2015 and was completed by Memorial Day.
“As lifetime residents of the neighborhood, my family and I have too much experience with the odor from the Bowery Bay plant,” Constantinides said. “The new aluminum tank covers and odor control units will help improve the quality of life for all families in the area. Eliminating most of the odor that comes from the plant is a major benefit for our community.”
The Bowery Bay Wastewater Treatment Plant went into operation in 1939 and is designed to treat 150 million gallons of wastewater a day. The plant serves nearly 850,000 residents in a drainage area of more than 15,000 acres in Astoria and East Elmhurst.
The holding tanks have the capacity to store 5550,000 cubic feet of sludge which goes through a dewatering process and the after-product is used as fertilizer. The aluminum covers, which are up to 85 feet wide, capture 99 percent of the odor and each dual-bed carbon canister filter cleanses up to 21,742 cubic feet of air per minute, absorbing the hydrogen sulfide gas molecules produced during wastewater treatment and the sludge digestion process.
“Wastewater treatment is a vital process that safeguards the environment and protects public health, so we work hard to ensure that we are good neighbors to those who live and work in the neighborhoods that surround our plants,” Lawitts said. “The completed odor upgrades at the Bowery Bay facility will directly benefit the residents of northern Queens.”
The Bowery Bay Wastewater Treatment is one of 14 facilities the DEP operates in residential or business communities across the five boroughs.
Reach reporter Bill Parry by e-mail at bparr
