Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
The underground sewer was a logical embodiment of the goals of envi-
ronmental sanitation, as was the sanitary landfill and the incinerator. These
technologies were meant to distance humans from their wastes and dis-
cards—materials which presumably had imbedded in them the threat of
disease.
Whole systems were designed, therefore, to meet the ends of environ-
mental sanitation.Water-supply systems began with a protected source—or
one that could be purified through filtration or treatment.The new distri-
bution system of pipes and pumps removed from the individual responsi-
bility for filling containers at a public well or local watercourse, and made
the waterworks—private and public—responsible for bringing water
directly to each consumer. Implicit in this system was a guarantee that
the supply met the prevailing standards of purity. With respect to waste-
water systems, citizen responsibility also was at a minimum. Combined
or separate sewer pipes whisked effluent from homes and businesses,
and placed responsibility for disposal in the hands of the city. The objec-
tives of environmental sanitation had been met because human contact
with the waste—at least at the source—was dramatically reduced. In the
case of refuse, on-site pickup served the same purpose as water or sewer
pipes.
Within the context of nineteenth-century environmental sanitation, san-
itary services were at their best in the areas of collection and delivery of
water, and collection of effluent and solid wastes. Insofar as pure water was
delivered efficiently and initial human contact with wastes was minimized,
these services fulfilled their major objective. A change in environmental
paradigm—from miasmas to bacteria—did not disrupt these methods of
collection, nor influence major changes in “front-of-the-pipe” components
in these technologies of sanitation. The new age of bacteriology, however,
did help to identify and ultimately confront “end-of-the-pipe” problems,
namely pollution. The major weakness of environmental sanitation as a
concept was its limited attention to disposal of effluent and refuse after they
had been directed away from homes and businesses.
With the onset of the Bacteriological Revolution, water pollution, in
particular, received greater and more pointed attention. Scientists, physi-
cians, and engineers now had a much better idea of what they were look-
ing for in the fight against communicable disease, and gave them a clearer
idea on how to combat biological pollutants. Older methods, such as dilu-
tion of wastes in running water, had value under proper circumstances, but
