Tank answer to Flushing River sewage stench

The City Environmental Protection agency’s [DEP] new 28-million gallon Flushing Bay sewage retention tank and a new area-wide combined sewer system will become operational this November, The Queens Courier has learned.
The nine-year, $300 million project promises to not only end the pervasive summertime stench from the polluted Flushing River, but to also speed development of Downtown Flushing and the “Iron Triangle” business complexes.
Councilman John Liu called the new project, “a tremendous boon towards restoring the Flushing River as the centerpiece of our community and revitalizing this important natural resource.”
The project is designed to improve water quality in Flushing Bay by vastly reducing the amount of sewage that overflows from the combined sewers into the Flushing River, which is the largest tributary to the bay.
Built on the site of three former baseball fields beneath Kissena Park, at Fowler Ave., the reinforced-concrete tank is over 800 feet long, more than 500 feet wide, and 20 feet high. Sitting on the roof of the completed tank will be two Parks Department state-of-the-art soccer fields. Also scheduled is a $14 million renovated promenade along the Flushing River waterfront.
A rising population and an inadequate combined sewer system with no significant storage capacity, Flushing’s 15 ancient sewer lines routinely discharge millions of gallons of raw sewage and rain water into the smelly Flushing River during inclement weather.
The river, EPA engineers say, cannot support aquatic life because it has a nearly zero oxygen rating.
At a Community Board 7 hearing in 1993, EPA engineers predicted that the new tank and sewer line systems will raise this rating to an approximate four parts per million — sufficient to support sea life and eliminate much of the odor around the mile long, 200-foot-wide, river.
After a heavy storm, the new retention tank will temporarily store the rain or melted snow and local sewage for 12 to 18 hours, until it can be pumped to the nearby Tallmans Island Sewage Treatment Plant.
Congressmen Gary Ackerman and Joseph Crowley have already garnered an additional $15 million for dredging the Flushing River and Bay this coming spring to decrease odors that are common during low tide, and also reduce floatable trash in the bay.
The huge tank promises to cut the combined sewage overflow into the river by 90 percent.
Designed to contain the sewage odors within the huge tank, the DEP has stressed the giant unit’s two ongoing programs:
*The odor from the stored sewage will be captured, treated and deodorized by a dual control system which “scrubs” the air and then treats it via a carbon absorption system.
*During excessively rainy weather, the sewage tank overflow will be disinfected to diminish toxic waste discharge into the river.
The project began construction in July, 1997, and is one of three major combined sewer overflow abatement projects, that include Alley Pond Park in Douglaston and one in Brooklyn.