we're seeing the biosolids from Newtown
Creek moving through this pipe right
here onto this boat and we're going to
head with it towards Island for the next
stage in the development of human fecal
matter
we met the captain of the Newtown Creek
you might not have realized it but those
big boats with DEP on their side are
traveling around New York Harbor
transporting human waste these ships run
every day even in a national crisis this
boat that's all about right that's
signaling the plant that we're done
loading so then they're gonna blow back
to us
fecal matter has always posed a
challenge to society for millions of
years the history of the human race has
been the history of moving across planet
Earth and leaving behind steaming piles
of human waste
but when civilization begins in human
being stay in one spot it is the waste
that has to move if the waste doesn't
move cities can't exist when Cortez met
the great Montezuma in Mexico he found
sludge boats floating in the capital
city without sewage there would have
been no glories of Alexandria Rome in
Philadelphia New York's first wastewater
treatment plant was built the same year
the Statue of Liberty arrived these
Boston one the off is gonna be pretty
good as one of our guys says you'd have
to sludge banking up in Times Square
knee-deep in finest Purdy from Times
Square
actually up until about what was it 20
years ago these boats used to take the
sludge half just dump it 12 miles out
and they realized that the tide was
still bringing sludge back in now we no
longer done in the old days the journey
would have stopped when the boat dumped
its cargo in the ocean but in 1992 the
United States banned ocean dumping so
now the boat ride is just a part of the
process but we still don't know where it
ends so after 30 days of fermentation in
the digesters of Newtown Creek the
biosolids were loaded into the barge and
would now be escorted up the East River
to the next processing plant located on
Ward's Island
hey wrecker so you got the steering are
we ready to go okay Joey got the bow go
Cottle up Stern go hold the spring line
what's going to happen with that sludge
when it gets towards Island we pump it
off and the plant D waters it they stay
go through it centrifuge and they spin
at a high rate and get the water out of
it and then what's left behind is solids
and then one after that that's out of my
area we're about one-and-a-half miles
from our destination of Ward's Island
with 80,000 cubic feet of sludge we're
going to send it out the boat D water it
over there but still nobody has been
able to reveal the ultimate destination
nobody will tell me where my poop is
going security security tank at Newtown
Creek is eastbound off 72nd 3pao house
bound through the gate be rounding up
woods I on Newtown Creek waiting for us
at Ward's Island Liz John McCabe also
known as the plant manager will go
upstairs to the second floor that's
where all the action happens Newtown
Creek separated the water and trash from
the waste and here at the dewatering
plant we are squeezing even more liquid
out of the solid this would be the
century
well there it is
you can't now it is extremely bad in
here it's the worst we've been yet is
there all over the floor
this is like the kingdom of raw
sewage
it's just going to life as we
know it we have to treat it you have to
treat the suit otherwise we wouldn't be
able to sustain life
that's the cake product that's right out
of the machine that's as fresh as it
gets the cake then moves from
centrifuges to dozens of conveyor belts
we're looking at the bottom of the
center fuse the dry product is dropped
by gravity
onto this conveyor belt
Horizon cake and this Verizon up cake
that's correct
endless stream doesn't stop it just
doesn't stop does not stop this place
smells so bad at first I mean it
literally hurts your head they call it
cake but it's human and it's
filling up 25 of these trucks every day
each tractor trailer has about 25 tons
of cake when it's removed from the
facility where they going to take it
each each biosolids contract goes to a
different site so we don't really know
Ben even though Danny would know but we
had asked Vinnie earlier and he hadn't
given us a satisfying answer so either
no one knows or no one is telling us
questions remained where was it going
why were they studying and what would be
the ultimate fate of our daily waste
maybe the professional suspected us
common people might not be ready for the
truth
you