Author: Winnie Hu / Source: New York Times
A submerged bike lane in Long Island City, Queens, where Amazon plans to build a campus for as many as 25,000 workers. Dave Sanders for The New York Times
Amazon says its new headquarters in Long Island City, Queens, will bring 25,000 jobs. It will also bring more crowds, more noise and, yes, more toilet flushing.
It might seem mundane, but what happens in the bathroom matters: New York, for all its modern conveniences, sits atop a century-old sewage system used by more people than ever before. Every time someone flushes, washes their hands or takes a shower, all that household wastewater (and worse) flows down into 7,500 miles of sewer pipes. Most of these pipes also do double duty, collecting rainwater runoff from rooftops as well as streets.
When these sewer pipes get clogged by humans — flushing baby wipes anyone? — or simply overloaded with rainwater, it becomes everyone’s problem. The “combined sewer overflows” are discharged directly into nearby rivers, bays and creeks instead of going to wastewater treatment plants. Raw sewage also backs up in homes, creating a stomach-turning mess.
Long Island City residents say these backups and overflows already happen whenever it rains hard — and 25,000 more Amazon workers will only make the problem worse. But city officials say they are ready to take on whatever comes down the pipes. Here is why.
2.5 million gallons of wastewater
A New Yorker typically uses 100 gallons of water per day, from showering and brushing teeth to washing dishes and clothes, according to the city.
All that water goes into the sewer pipes.By that math, 25,000 Amazon workers will produce 2.5 million gallons of wastewater per day. While that sounds like a lot, it is actually not by city standards.
For context, about 1.3 billion gallons of wastewater pass daily through the entire sewage system on rainless days. Even when it rains, the system can handle up to 3.8 billion gallons of wastewater per day.
An outfall between the East River and wetlands designed to absorb stormwater inside Hunters Point Park South in Long Island City.
Bigger Pipes for Sewage
Amazon’s wastewater will flow into pipes that are bigger than those found in most residential neighborhoods. Long Island City is a former industrial area, so its pipes once handled the output from factories and businesses.
These sewer pipes are also in relatively good shape, said Vincent Sapienza, commissioner of the city’s Department of Environmental Protection. The oldest pipes date to the 1900s, while others were added in the 1920s when construction was planned for the entrance to the Queens-Midtown Tunnel. The rest came decades later.
Citywide, the average age of a sewer line is about 80 years old.
“I would say Long Island City is middle-aged,” Mr. Sapienza said.
Room at the Treatment Plant
Nearly all of Long Island City’s wastewater is whisked away to the Bowery Bay Wastewater Treatment Plant in Astoria, Queens, one of the city’s 14 sewage treatment plants.
Currently, the Bowery Bay plant processes about 100 million gallons of wastewater each day. It can handle much more — up to 150 million gallons a day — leaving plenty of room for Amazon’s wastewater, city officials said.
“Even if there’s an influx of 25,000 people, that’s only 2.5 million…
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