A long-delayed project to convert organic waste into natural gas for heating fuel at the city’s Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant is on track to launch as early as next month, according to sources with knowledge of the effort. The biogas project — helmed by National Grid and the city’s Department of Environmental Protection — was supposed to be complete in 2015, but has been delayed due to broken equipment, supply chain issues and other construction problems caused by the pandemic.
The cost has ballooned from $14.6 million to $47.8 million, according to a 2021 memo from National Grid. The end is finally in sight. National Grid is running final tests and the project is expected to be up and running as early as January, according to Councilmember Lincoln Restler, whose Brooklyn district includes Greenpoint, where the plant is located.
“We’re hopeful that it will be operational in the new year,” Restler said. “We expect if there are no further issues that, in the new year, things should be functioning properly.”