After the fall of the empire, Romans kept throwing filth in the streets, but nobody was washing them. In Rome many sewer pipes fell into disrepair. Everywhere else people got along without them as they always had: at best using latrines (unlined pits) or cesspits (pits lined with perforated masonry that let liquids drain away into the soil while solids piled up for eventual removal) and at worst throwing their waste into the streets and leaving it there. In the 13th century the French king Philip II paved the streets of Paris to reduce the stench, with the result that afterward the waste sat on the stones instead of percolating into the soil. In the 14th century, one of his successors, Philip VI, ordered Parisians to sweep in front of their houses and take the refuse to a dump; crews of sanitation workers were organized to clean up whatever was left. In a return to the technology of the Roman Empire, in 1370 Paris opened a series of drainage canals that also carried waste--the biggest was lined with masonry and called the Grand Egout, or Great Drain. By the 16th century one British royal castle had to post signs reminding people not to "foul the staircases, corridors, or closets with urine or other filth." When the palace of Versailles opened in the 17th century, it had lovely splashing fountains but no bathrooms or sewers.
The world changed in 1842, when the city of Hamburg, after suffering a terrible fire, decided to lay sewer pipes while rebuilding. The new pipes vented through house drains and had a mechanism for flushing using tidewater. The system was efficient, didn't stink, and became a worldwide model. (Before the introduction of these sewers, typhoid, transmitted through water tainted by sewage, caused 48.5 of every 1,000 deaths in Hamburg; after the sewers came into use the number dropped by half.) Immediately thereafter the Parisians began turning their 14th-century sewer system into a wonder of the world, building hundreds of miles of huge brick tunnels to carry away stormwater and everything else Parisians cared to sluice inside.
When early American cities such as Boston and Philadelphia began paving their streets with cobblestones in the 17th century, gutters--and even some underground sewers--were included among the improvements. Private citizens built Boston's first systems, designed, like the Cloaca Maxima and the Grand Egout, to drain cellars and swamps. Bostonians soon grew weary of the constant repairs those wooden sewer lines required and undertook a sort of public-private partnership by issuing construction permits for sewers; everyone who wished to connect a drain had to share in the cost, and the contracts stipulated requirements about pavement reconstruction. Philadelphia had a system of culverts and some underground sewers by 1750, and New York City started putting a few sewers underground later in the century. Human waste, though, remained mostly a personal matter of cesspits and privies.
Sewers really took off in 1854, with John Snow's discovery that the London cholera epidemic was caused by sewage-tainted drinking water. With advances in microbiology, people began to understand that human waste carried disease in the form of microbes, and increasingly they wanted to protect themselves from their sewage. What's more, the introduction of reliable water service in the 19th century and the spread of the modern flush toilet (the British Public Health Act of 1848, which required every home to have some kind of sanitary arrangement, listed "water closet" as one of the alternatives to an ash pit or privy) vastly increased the amount of wastewater households generated. Cesspits and privies that had already created offensive nuisances now produced vast, vile-smelling seepages, overwhelmed by the new volume of water. And it wasn't just toilets, either--connections draining sinks and tubs began overwhelming sewer pipes, too; in 1844 Boston tried to slow the tide, literally, by passing a law requiring a doctor's order for every bath.
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16 Comments
Add CommentExcellent 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.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRecycled 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?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisExcellent 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
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisone 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;-)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe 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".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisQuestion; Does it make sense to pump city water from wells (from the aquifer) use it, treat it, and dump it in the river-shed?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA 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.
I agree wholeheartedly with several others here that this was a fascinating and well-written article. Who knew sewage treatment could be so interesting?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA 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!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA 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!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis 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.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis 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:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis 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.
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.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAquifer 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.
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.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPyrolysing sewerage is a new, simpler and cheaper technique that should totally replace traditional plant. See www.eprida.com for more details.
How sewage treatment works in this country is so complicated! Why all the bother?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThey've got it figured out in Kibera; who needs sewers? Just poo in a bag and throw it in the street!
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.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@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.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisScott