A History of Sewage Treatment

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A History of Sewage Treatment

• DZ05
• 11/14/2005

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Evolution of Driving Issues

• Smell
• Infectious Disease
• Chronic Health Risks
• Environmental Concerns

Source http//www.cet.nau.edu/Projects/WDP/resour
ces/History/History.htm
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Strategies from the Distant Past

• 10,000 BC Nomadic Tribes just move away
• 3500 BC City of Ur (Iraq)
• sweep waste into the streets
• gt street level rises
• gt raise the doors
• 2100 BC City of Herakopolis (Egypt)
• Like Ur
• but rich religious people put waste into RIVERS

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Sewage The Classical Period

• 1700-1500 BC Minoan Culture (Crete) Plumbing,
  flush toilets, sewers
• 500 to 300 BC Athens (Greece)
• Dumps expenses for waste removal covered by
  levees on landowners
• 600 BC to 400 AD Roman Republic
• Aqueducts (mostly underground)
• Sewers
• Waste gt Rivers (Tiber, Rome)
• Public baths
• Flush Toilets (not seen again until 1600)

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Middle Ages

• 500-1500 AD Europe Back to Ur
• Outhouses, open trenches, chamber pots
• Problem waste pits gt wells gt contaminated
  drinking water
• READING
• Renaissance
• Development of the cesspool (pit that allows
  liquid to seep away)
• Henry VI VII (England) laws about polluting
  streams
• Some awareness of the link between sanitation and
  human health

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19th Century

• 1860 Louis Moureas invents the septic tank
• Allows solids to settle out before liquid is
  discharged to the nearest stream or river
• Used for communities
• People also experimented with sand filters
• READING

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New York City Early 19th Century

• Early 1800s water from wells and cisterns
• Private waste disposal (privies for temporary
  storage) vault and haul
• Belief running water purifies effluent
• Potential for water pollution not recognized

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New York City Late 19th Century

• Sewers initially developed for storm water (this
  created problems later!)
• Limited water supply made water-based disposal
  unworkable (no water to flush toilets)
• This changed when water arrived via aqueduct
• 1860s Physicians and Engineers employed by the
  City
• Croton Aqueduct Department building sewers to
  handle new influx created by more domestic use
• Connecting all houses to sewers took a long time
• Connections achieved by public funding pushed by
  public health concerns