The guy running the snake down our sewer looks matter-of-fact. Our sewage has been backing up. Right next to the pipe connecting our house to the sewer line running down our street stands a 70-year-old willow oak, and I worry the tree's roots have found their way, during the droughty past year, into our line. He shrugs: Maybe it's tree roots, maybe it's a collapsed pipe, maybe it's a yo-yo. The snake went in only a dozen feet or so and found a clog, and now the little claw at the end is spinning. Once he pulls it out we'll know better what's going on. I leave him to his business, though I cast an annoyed glance at the oak. Sewer pipes fit together simply, with a bell joint, and tiny root hairs find their way to the nutrient-rich flow, then grow larger, eventually growing large enough to shatter the vitreous clay pipe that forms so many service lines or dislodge a joint if the pipes are cast iron. Nobody knows what our pipes, 70 years old, are made of, but I fear we're about to find out.

Fifteen minutes later he's winding the snake back up, writing a bill, and exonerating the oak.

"Do you have a baby?" he asks. We do.

"Do you use those flushable wipes?" We do.

"Don't," he says. The entire paper industry in recent years has worked to develop more and more flushable items: baby wipes, moist adult wipes, antibacterial bathroom scrubbers, diaper liners, diapers. He shakes his head: If it doesn't come apart in your hands, don't flush it. All it has to do is hold its form for an hour or so and it can find a place to catch: a joint, a root, a pimple on the inside of the pipe, one of the little mounds of rust buildup called tubercules. Then, like a snag in a river, it starts catching other stuff and you've got yourself a situation, either for you or for your whole neighborhood. We're like a nation of 1-year-olds, throwing everything in the toilet. "Toilet paper and what comes out of you," he says. "That's what should go in the toilet." Take the goldfish outside and bury it; otherwise the best case is it's just going to get caught in a screen at the treatment plant. It won't biodegrade on the way down, and it might cause trouble. And let's not even bring up those garbage disposals--we had had another guy out 6 months before and he excavated enough of a neatly processed carrot that with sufficient patience we could have reconstructed it. The sewer, person after person tells me, is for sewage.

Your favorite pop culture reference to sewage may involve Art Carney, in character as Ed Norton, singing, "Together we stand, with shovel in hand, to keep things rolling along." Or maybe it's one of those scenes from Phantom of the Opera or Les Mis, with all kinds of French high drama occurring amid the atmospheric flow. I prefer Carl Spackler in Caddyshack, cackling while creating plastic explosive animals against a backdrop of sacks of the common golf-course fertilizer Milorganite. You scarcely notice it, but I'll decode that: Milorganite is short for MILwaukee ORGAnic NITrogEn, a soil treatment produced by the city of Milwaukee's wastewater treatment plant since 1925 and now used on lawns all over the country. It's the end result of their sewage treatment, and they ship thousands of tons of it each year.

The point isn't so much that what happens to our sewage reaches into every crevice of our culture. The point is that once you're managing it instead of wishing it away, sewage turns out to be a pretty good thing.

In the North Carolina State Archives in Raleigh, just hanging around atop some cabinets lies an extra set of 4-foot-square planning maps made in 1922--the first planning documents in Raleigh's history. They make great idle-time study: "Locations of Fires in Buildings: One of a Series of Preliminary Zoning Studies," says one. Another shows the water distribution system, a 16-inch and a 14-inch line coming from the pumping station down by Walnut Creek to the city water tower; another shows hard-surface paving; a fourth demonstrates "Barriers to Street Extensions and Residential and Commercial Growth."

16 Comments

1. 1. quincykim 02:36 PM 7/5/10

   Excellent article, kudos to SA for reprinting it. I've been studying water and wastewater treatment with an eye toward employment. The more I learn, the more impressed and fascinated I am by the ingenuity that had made WWTPs amazingly efficient and virtually smell-free, producing very clean water. It's unfortunate that most people can't or won't ever visit one of these high tech plants to see how much they aren't like you'd expect, and how sensible it is to re-use tertiary treated water.

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2. 2. lwinn 04:48 PM 7/5/10

   Recycled water is the only thing that makes sense in a space colony. Of course, you could reduce all the water in sewage to hydrogen and oxygen, then burn it, if you have enough energy. I'm always looking for alternative concepts. Got ideas?

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3. 3. rstorey 05:56 PM 7/5/10

   Excellent article, with information that should be, but is generally not, understood by citizens. Many still protest the fees they must pay for wastewater treatment as part of their utility bill. I hope this lengthy article can be condensed into newspaper features and municipal handouts to better educate citizens about a vital service. The city of Arcata, CA, has a very interesting wastewater treatment system that may warrant the attention of the author and readers. Link: http://www.cityofarcata.org/departments/environmental-services/water-wastewater/wildlife-sanctuary

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4. 4. Wayne Williamson 06:23 PM 7/6/10

   one of the best articles i've read in along time....contained both historic and current detail...thanks Scott for your effort...this should be one of the main articles in sciam...not just a link to the side...then again 11 pages might be to much for most;-)

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5. 5. lowndesw 05:22 PM 7/7/10

   The four letter word for this stuff is actually an old acronym from the days of sail. When guano (bird droppings) was discovered in huge quantities on pacific islands and transported back in bales in the cargo holds of wooden sailing ships, any stored in the very bottom would get wet, give off methane gas which would be ignited by any sailor with a candle doing inspections. Several ships were lost before survivors told of huge explosions and fires that happened during inspections and the problem and mystery was resolved. Thereafter, maritime laws required all guano bales be marked "Store High In Transit".

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6. 6. Quinn the Eskimo 01:42 AM 7/8/10

   Question; Does it make sense to pump city water from wells (from the aquifer) use it, treat it, and dump it in the river-shed?
   
   A rural home pumps from a residential well, uses it, treats it and returns it to the ground. Not a river headed for the Gulf of Oil.

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7. 7. akmangalick 01:57 AM 7/8/10

   I agree wholeheartedly with several others here that this was a fascinating and well-written article. Who knew sewage treatment could be so interesting?

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8. 8. wongxinwei 12:06 AM 7/10/10

   A well written story on the history of used water distribution and treatment around the world. Ending off with a a fine and entertaining write up on the process of water reclamation. I love the point which says that what the used water treatment plant is doing is in fact mimicking what the river is doing, just quicker!

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9. 9. wongxinwei 12:07 AM 7/10/10

   A well written story on the history of used water distribution and treatment around the world. Ending off with a a fine and entertaining write up on the process of water reclamation. I love the point which says that what the used water treatment plant is doing is in fact mimicking what the river is doing, just quicker!

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10. 10. mm in reply to lowndesw 12:09 AM 7/13/10

    This is hogwash, or perhaps a good example of the word it purports to define. See the Etymology section of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shit, which shows the origins going back to Roman times.

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11. 11. mm 12:19 AM 7/13/10

    This text was meant to reply to the comment on the origin of the s-word, not a comment on the article or reply to any of the other comments:
    
    This is hogwash, or perhaps a good example of the word it purports to define. See the Etymology section of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shit, which shows the origins going back to Roman times.
    
    The article itself was wonderful, a fascinating read, with a mind-boggling amount of information I could hardly wrap my mind around (though Mr. Huler's style certainly was as clear as . . . triple-treated waste water!).
    I live in flat Phoenix and I'm really wanting now to know how our system works. And all the other infrastructure we ignore but wouldn't want to be without these days.
    
    

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12. 12. huler 05:34 PM 7/13/10

    Thanks for the kind words; mm, you beat me to the punch on the etymology. And in answer to Quinn, no, I don't think that makes sense; surface water -- like water from a reservoir -- basically just makes its way to the ocean through the city and its residents. That's where it was going anyhow, so wastewater generated by a community with surface water as its source can reasonably be released back into the stormwater system -- the riverbasin from which it emerged.
    
    Aquifer water is on the same journey, but it may take much longer, and continued pumping from an aquifer can deplete it; using septic systems to replace wastewater from such systems into the aquifer is probably a wiser move. Just the same, in my experience most houses on pumps -- using aquifer water -- are also using septic systems too, so the wastewater just trickles back into the ground.
    
    There's a long chapter in "On the Grid" about stormwater -- much current stormwater treatment is about keeping it where it lands and helping it soak into the earth, instead of using curb and gutter to sluice it into creeks. It has a job to do as part of the hydrological cycle, and we do ourselves and the planet no favors by getting rid of it so quickly.

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13. 13. eco-steve 05:46 PM 7/20/10

    Many sewerage treatment stations only work at around 15% efficiency, because the operators cut the electricity supply to aerators and turbines to reduce expenses. The liquids that are then put into rivers are therefore a serious cause of pollution.
    Pyrolysing sewerage is a new, simpler and cheaper technique that should totally replace traditional plant. See www.eprida.com for more details.

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14. 14. Neptunerover 07:41 AM 7/25/10

    How sewage treatment works in this country is so complicated! Why all the bother?
    They've got it figured out in Kibera; who needs sewers? Just poo in a bag and throw it in the street!

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15. 15. cwclark 01:34 AM 8/14/10

    Thank you for this article; it has been a wonder to me that we honor or police and firefighters (rightfully so) but never give a second thought about those water and wastewater professionals who also keep us safe and healthy day in and day out. This too is a dangerious profession, there are more people who die in water/wastewater industry than in the police/fire profession. Again, kudos, keep up the good work.

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16. 16. huler 03:45 PM 8/14/10

    @cwclark: I did not know that -- do you have a source for that statistic? It's important and I will share it. Thanks for your kind words.
    Scott

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