Celebrate your Valentine’s love with a visit to a wastewater treatment plant

Love is in the air in Brooklyn

February 1, 2017 By Mary Frost Brooklyn Daily Eagle

An oddly popular Valentine's date is offered at the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant in Greenpoint, shown above. Photos courtesy of the Department of Environmental Conservation

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How better to celebrate Valentine’s Day than with a tour of a wastewater treatment plant?

This uniquely Brooklyn tradition continues with the city’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) Valentine’s tour of the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant in Greenpoint.

Three odoriferous tours will be held on the Saturday before Valentine’s Day, February 11, and will be led by plant operators. Romantic moments include a short overview of the wastewater treatment process followed by a visit to the 120-foot-high observation deck located atop the iconic digester eggs. There, the romantically inclined can enjoy scenic views of the New York City skyline and watch barges loaded with human waste pull off into the mist.

This is a hot ticket, so reserve ASAP. Tour times are 11 a.m., 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. – and reservations are taken on a first come, first served basis. The tours will begin at the Visitors Center, which is located at 329 Greenpoint Ave.

The oddly popular Valentine’s tours started in 2012.

According to DEP, the Newtown Creek plant serves approximately one million residents in a drainage area of more than 25 square miles, including portions of Manhattan, western Queens and northern Brooklyn.

The plant is the city’s largest wastewater treatment facility and is in the final stages of a $5 billion upgrade that has increased its wet weather capacity to over 700 million gallons a day. Newtown Creek has also been honored by The New York City Public Design Commission with two Awards for Excellence in Design.