USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Newton > Town of Newton annual report 1878-1879 > Part 19
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ing, we cheerfully express our approval of the attention which the engineer has given to the subject, and our appre- ciation of the valuable assistance and suggestions which we have received from him.
All of which is most respectfully submitted.
CHAS. ROBINSON, JR., E. W. CONVERSE, Commissioners. J. FRANKLIN FULLER,
NEWTON, December 27, 1879.
REPORT OF THE ENGINEER.
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To HON. CHARLES ROBINSON, Jr., Commissioners on Sewerage for the E. W. CONVERSE, Esq.,
J. FRANKLIN FULLER, Esq.,
City of Newton.
GENTLEMEN : - I now present my report in relation to the matters which you have referred to me.
THE DISPOSAL OF THE SEWAGE
is the first subject for consideration.
The principal means of disposal of water-carried sewage may be divided into three classes.
1st. Treatment for coagulation and subsidence, by the aid of chemicals.
2d. Application to land.
3d. Discharge directly or indirectly into the sea.
TREATMENT BY THE AID OF CHEMICALS.
This treatment, in some of the numerous "precipitation processes," has been practiced to some extent in England for more than thirty years. The hope at first entertained of making valuable manures in this way, has now been gen- erally abandoned. The sewage is clarified by the removal of part of the matter in suspension, but the fertilizing elements are chiefly in solution and are not extracted to any great ex- tent by these processes. Hence the precipitated sludge has but little value as manure. Formerly, farmers would some- times pay a trifle for some of it for use near where it was produced.
" At Birmingham there is now no serious attempt to sell
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the sewage-sludge, but it is at great cost, £14, 10s. per acre, dug into a portion of the farm land, at a rate of about one acre per week ; or at a loss of about £750 a year. At Leeds, Bradford, Bolton, and at Coventry, thousands of tons of ex- tracted sewer-sludge remain to cumber the works."
Perhaps the most successful application of a precipitation process, in a sanitary point of view, at present in operation, is at Coventry, in England.
This city has about forty thousand inhabitants, living in ten thousand four hundred houses. Private water-works supply about seven hundred and twenty thousand imperial gallons of water per day; there are also twenty-one public wells and many private wells, from which a considerable number of the people obtain water, so that the consumption for domestic purposes is estimated at twenty-five gallons per day per in- habitant.
There are five thousand water-closets and numerous silk- dying works, breweries, oil and varnish works, etc., from which refuse liquids pass into the sewers. Large quantities of subsoil water also leak in, so that the ordinary daily flow through the sewers is two million gallons, or fifty gallons per day per inhabitant.
The "General Sewage and Manure Company, Limited," took the sewage and a few acres of land under a fourteen years' lease, at a rental of £75 per annum. Works were built at a cost of twelve thousand pounds, and got into oper- ation about five years ago. The sewage was first strained, then treated with chemicals and run into large tanks to allow the sludge to settle; after which the water was drawn off and run through a filter consisting of about four and a half acres of loamy land with sub-drains about five feet deep. These drains discharge into the river Sherbourne, which is a small and rather sluggish stream about ten feet wide. Its natural flow is sometimes not more than half as large as the volume of sewage-water turned into it from the Coventry works. In other words, it is a stream about twice as large as Cheese-cake brook, at West Newton.
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It was reported that the sludge amounted to about thirty tons per day, and cost, in its wet state, about 4s. 10d. per ton. A part of it was dried by centrifugal machines and artificial heat, and in this state it cost £2, 10s. per ton. The sludge could not be sold, either wet or dry, at anything near its cost, and hence the drying by artificial heat was abandoned. In January, 1876, after special exertions, three hundred and fifty tons of sludge direct from the subsidence tanks were taken or ordered by neighboring farmers, at 3s. per ton, or six- ty-two per cent of its cost.
In April, 1877, the engineer of the company reported that the cost for each million gallons of sewage treated was £4, 14s. He also says: "The sales of manure, according to the books, have been at rates varying from 4s. a ton for sludge containing about sixty-five per cent of moisture, to 40s. a ton for dried manure containing ten per cent of moisture." Ac- cording to this, the cost for treating two million gallons per day would be £3,430 per annum, and from all the informa- tion attainable, it seems probable that the company lost at least £3,000 every year.
It might reasonably be inferred that the company could not long continue at this rate ; and in the latter part of 1876, the Town Council appointed a committee to investigate mat- ters, and they reported in favor of continuing the system. In May, 1877, a new contract for carrying on the works was made with the " Rivers Purification Association, Limited." The terms of this contract are not made public.
After the sewage is strained, it is dosed with a cheap salt of alumina (obtained by treating the shale found in the coal and iron-stone formations with sulphuric acid) ; lime is then added to the mixture, and subsidence and filtration fol- low, as before described. The cost of the chemicals is about £1, 13s. per million gallons of manufacturing sewage, and about £1, 2s. 6d. per million gallons of domestic sewage. It should be observed that this cost is for sewage diluted to the rate of fifty gallons per day per inhabitant.
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The chemical treatment is not continuous, however; all the sewage from 11 P. M. till 5.30 A. M. flows through the settling tanks and on to the filtering area without any ad- mixture of chemicals.
The drying of the sludge by artificial heat is definitely abandoned, and no return from sales of sludge is now relied upon.
In applying this process, it is desirable to find a location for the works to which the sewage can be carried by gravita- tion, and at a good distance from other buildings, so that un- der proper restrictions, the odors will not make a nuisance. As the effluent water after the treatment retains a large part of the soluble and putrescible sewage matter, unless it is thor- oughly filtered through land, it must be carried in covered sewers to some stream or body of water large enough to dilute it with several times its own volume of nearly pure water.
In the case of Newton, there may be some question whether locations sufficiently remote from buildings can be secured. The best approximation would seem to be as fol- lows :- carry the sewage of Wards 1 and 7, and part of Ward 2, to the marsh between Newton and Faneuil, and the rest of the sewage to the bank of the Charles river at the mouth of Cheese-cake brook. This could be done without pumping, and probably the effluent-water could safely be dis- charged into the river in both cases, though some people might be unduly alarmed and object to a discharge at the last-mentioned place. The sludge would have to be carried away to land dry enough to receive it without offence. At present the nearest houses are about a quarter of a mile from each of these locations. Probably objections, whether rea- sonable or not, would be made by the owners of adjoining lands against the treatment of sewage on a large scale at either of these places.
The first cost of conducting the sewage to these locations, and of land and plant for carrying on the process, would
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probably be as great as for carrying the same amount of sew- age to an outfall opposite the Arsenal grounds, as hereinafter recommended.
A large part of the usefulness of an ordinary system of sewers consists in its ability to carry away the rain-water from the streets. The first run of street-water at the begin- ning of rainfalls is often more filthy than ordinary dry- weather sewage.
A very large part of the sediment deposited in streams by sewers comes from the streets during storms. Hence precip- itation works should be large enough to take care of a storm- flow considerably greater than the ordinary dry-weather run.
APPLICATION TO LAND.
The application of water-carried sewage to land, by irriga- tion or filtration has never been made on a large scale in this country ; but sewage irrigation has been thoroughly tried for about twenty-five years in England, where it has been more extensively employed than the precipitation processes ; and the Craigentinny and other meadows near Edinburg have been irrigated with sewage from that city for about one hun- dred and twenty years.
Strenuous efforts have been made to secure the best sani- tary results by this process and at the same time to make it profitable, or at least self-supporting. It was believed that sewage contained fertilizing elements of great value which, instead of being made the means of dangerous pollution of rivers and harbors, might be utilized by applying the sewage to land.
But many of the difficulties were unforeseen or under- rated ; and although this process is capable of giving better sanitary results than the precipitation processes, extended trials by many cities and towns in England seem to show that, commercially, it is a failure.
In an agricultural view, however, considerable success has
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attended the application of sewage to some of the coarser grasses and vegetables which absorb large quantities of wa- ter. The English "Local Government Board " states that Italian rye-grass seems to be the most advantageous crop for this purpose, "as it absorbs the largest quantity of sewage, occupies the soil so as to choke down weeds, comes early into market in the spring, (February 12, in one instance,) con- tinues through the summer and autumn, bearing from five to seven cuttings in the year, and producing from thirty to fifty tons of wholesome grass upon each acre. The area placed under this crop must, however, have reference to local means of consumption, as the young grass will not keep nor bear long carriage. It is most profitable for feeding to milch cows. A dairy and sewage farm should, therefor, whenever practi- cable, be associated. In a dry and warm summer, good hay may be made which will be sweet and wholesome." In one instance, in 1876, forty-five tons of hay were made from one cutting of eighteen acres of rye-grass.
In India, Spain, Southern France, and Northern Italy, irri- gation on a large scale has proved successful, both financially and agriculturally. But great allowance must be made for difference of circumstances. These countries have torrid cli- mates and thirsty soils. In England and the United States the conditions are different. Hence there is great force in the statement of Prof. Way, as an argument for the system, agriculturally and commercially, in India, and against it in England and the United States: " Under given conditions the sewage is valuable merely as water, and under other con- ditions the water is so objectionable that you would rather lose the manure than be obliged to have the water."
For this system a suitable tract of land must be obtained by purchase or lease. The conditions to secure the best re- sults are numerous. It should lie so low that the sewage will reach it by gravitation, or the process of pumping must be resorted to. It should be of sufficient area for present and increasing future demands ; and it should have a light
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porous soil, either naturally or artificially under-drained. It should not be so near the town as to be a nuisance to the in- habitants, nor so distant as to greatly increase the expense of conveying the sewage- say one to two miles away - and the direction of the prevailing winds should also be consid- ered. It should be skillfully laid out for its intended pur- pose, and thereafter managed with unremitting skill and care.
Where the principal aim has been to get large agricultural results from the sewage, in the best English practice, it has been applied at the average rate of about three thousand United States gallons per day per acre.
As the effort to make sewage irrigation profitable has gen- erally failed, and it is difficult in many places to obtain a suf- ficient area of land for the purpose, a new plan for the puri- fication of sewage by its application to land, suggested by Dr. Frankland, and called "Intermittent Downward Filtra- tion," has been tried in several places.
This plan undertakes to purify the sewage of about one thousand persons on one acre of land, or ten times as much as is ordinarily provided for by an acre in broad irrigation. But so far as I know, it has not been tried alone at any place permanently. At Merthyr Tydfil, in the south of Wales, this plan was followed for a few months while the irrigation fields were preparing ; but there, as at Kendal and Abingdon, in England, the ordinary use of the filtration areas is in com- bination with broad irrigation. The three places above- named are the only prominent ones where the scheme is now in operation. Mr. Bailey Denton, the engineer who planned the works for each of these places, has recently presented the works at Abingdon, which were the last to be finished and which have now been in operation about a year, as a model for economy and " a favorable instance of intermittent filtra- tion combined with surface irrigation."
In intermittent downward filtration the successive filling of the soil with air and then with sewage, is relied upon to
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bring the particles of sewage into minute contact with parti- cles of air so that the putrescible matters shall be oxidized and destroyed. This, however, is but a systematic develop- ment of a process which goes on, to a considerable extent, in ordinary irrigation.
Abingdon " has a population of a little above six thousand, and a ratable value of about £14,750. The land selected for the cleansing of the sewage, and purchased by the urban authority, is distant half a mile from the town."
Mr. Denton says, " thirty-four acres of land have been pre- pared," by under-draining, grading, etc., " six and one-half for intermittent filtration, and twenty-seven and one-half for sur- face irrigation, and the total outlay, including delivering con- duit (pipes) as well as chambers and distributing earth car- riers, cart roads, barrow paths, and fencing, wages of clerk of works, and charges of engineer, has not exceeded £2,550, or an average of £75 per acre. The cost of preparing the land for intermittent downward filtration did not reach £85 per acre, while that of preparing it for surface irrigation cost over £70 per acre, including in each case a proper proportion of attendant charges. The soil of Abingdon is not more suita- ble than that of Merthyr and Kendal, yet it will be seen that the actual cost is only about one-third of that represented in the report referred to as the case at Kendal."
If we assume that it is proper now to provide works for Newton which may in the future be readily extended so as to be suitable for a population of forty thousand, it would be needful to obtain an area of about four hundred acres on which to purify the sewage by broad irrigation. On this area some provision should be made to purify the sewage while it is not needed by the crops. For this purpose, filtration areas may be constructed, or " waste land " set apart, or reservoirs built to receive the flow when it cannot otherwise be dis- posed of.
If it were possible to dispose of the sewage by filtration areas alone, a much less area than that above given would
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suffice. The estimate that the sewage from one thousand persons can be disposed of upon one acre of land is made by the friends of this plan. The experience obtained at Mer- thyr Tydfil indicates that under ordinary circumstances the sewage of five hundred persons would be all that could be disposed of upon an acre, for a series of years, without chok- ing the land. To be on the safe side, therefore, it would be necessary to provide eighty acres for filtration per se.
I do not know of any suitable tract of even eighty acres, in or near Newton, whose use for this purpose would be allowa- ble, and where the sewage could be delivered without pumping.
Judging from the experience abroad, which has been very extensive and decisive, we must dismiss from our minds all idea of obtaining a profit from sewage farming.
In Newton the dry-weather sewage, including subsoil- water which will leak into the sewers, will probably amount to at least seventy-five gallons per day, or one hundred and fourteen tons per year, for each inhabitant in the sewered districts. The fertilizing elements in the total excreta of an average individual, per annum, have been estimated by European chemists as follows : -
Ammonia, 10 to 123 pounds, say 11 pounds.
Phosphoric acid, ,, 22 "
Potash,
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The value, in Boston, of the above in a crude and impure condition fit for agricultural use only, as in guano or bone dust, may be a little over $2.00. Distributing this through one hundred and fourteen tons of sewage-water gives less than two cents' worth of manure to a ton of water ; and this is a maximum estimate, as the rate of dilution will probably be greater than here reckoned in dry weather, and certainly much larger in wet weather. This view is sustained by the analysis of the sewage of Boston and Worcester made for the State Board of Health. By these examinations it was found that the fertilizing matters in a ton of the dry-weather sewage of Boston, compared with fertilizers sold in the mar-
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ket, were worth about one cent, and in the sewage of Wor- cester about seven-eighths of a cent.
Small as the value of sewage is thus seen to be, it cannot all be made available to the growing crops. Under the care- ful and remarkably successful management of Mr. Hope at Romford, about one-third of the nitrogen combined in the ammonia of the sewage has been availed of by the crop, and under other circumstances nearly seventy per cent of the nitrogen has been found escaping in the effluent-water.
The utilization of sewage in this country, on a large scale, is quite untried, and under the different circumstances exist- ing here new difficulties are likely to arise. It is quite clear that, for the sake of economy, the sewage for Newton should be discharged into the tidal portion of Charles River, if it is found to be practicable to do this without making a nuisance.
DISCHARGE DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY INTO THE SEA.
Probably forty-nine fiftieths of the water-carried sewage of the civilized world is disposed of in this way.
The objection often made that this method wastes valuable manures, is shown by the facts above quoted to have but little weight.
The objections on the score of the fouling of the waters and filling up the channels of rivers and harbors, are of more or less importance, depending on the circumstances in each particular case, and chiefly on the amount of sewage matter comparative to the volumn and strength of the current of water into which it is discharged.
It was supposed that arrangements might be made at some future time, for discharging our ordinary dry-weather sewage into an extension of the proposed Boston main drainage, at some point near the Watertown Arsenal, and discharging into Charles river only when the main sewer should be over- filled during storm. The Boston Sewerage Commissioners of 1875, proposed to start east from Cottage Farm, with a main
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drain nine feet in diameter, and having its crown at grade eight ; that is, eight feet above mean low tide.
If a sewer of something near this size should be extended up to North Beacon Street opposite the Arsenal, rising one in twenty-five hundred, it would be practicable for us to unite with it.
But the present plan, as set forth in the Report on Improved Sewerage, July, 1877, is materially different. It provides for sewage from places west of Cottage Farm, as follows :
From Waltham, 1.81 cubic feet per second= 108.6 cubic feet per minute.
Watertown, 1.81
Newton, 8.08 "
=108.6 = 484.8
"
Brighton, 27.14 " "
" = 1628.4
"
A sewer thirty inches in diameter, will discharge the amount above allowed for from Waltham, Watertown, and Newton, viz., seven hundred and two cubic feet per minute, even at the low velocity of 2.4 feet per second, which is about the slowest that is sufficient to prevent the accumulation of deposits.
Sewers of the small sizes suitable for this scheme require so much fall in order to make them self-cleansing, that they could not drain any territory on the plain west of Newton- ville, nor any of the river slope in the vicinity of the North Village, unless the sewage were raised by pumping ; and the capacity proposed would be only a small fraction of what is desirable even for the limited territory which they could reach by gravitation in Wards 1, 2, and 7.
Further, the Boston sewer will probably not be extended up to the vicinity of the Arsenal for many years to come. In the distant future, arrangements may, perhaps, be made for discharging part of the dry-weather sewage of Newton into it. It is obvious then that the Boston system cannot offer any adequate provision for our wants, and is not entitled to any further notice or consideration.
We can estimate with confidence what effects will be pro- duced by the discharge of the sewage of Newton into Charles
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river opposite the Arsenal, from an examination of the actual effects in many similar cases in this country and in Europe.
The quantity of water flowing in a stream at different stages, can be estimated approximately from the area and character of the territory draining into it, the rainfall, etc.
Substantially all the pollutions of streams come from the inhabitants and businesses which send their refuse directly into them, either through sewers or by surface drainage. Hence, most rural and village populations should be left out of account in an enquiry of this kind, as not contributing appreciably to the pollution of any stream.
In this connection, it is important to observe that much the larger part of the sewage nuisances in the civilized world are produced by refuse from manufacturing operations. It is true that there are many local nuisances, at outfalls of ordi- nary sewage ; but most of them might have been prevented by better arrangements. There are also cases where small brooks are badly polluted in running through dirty villages. But the cases where rivers, even of the smallest size, receive domestic sewage enough to make any nuisance after it is once mixed with the whole volume of the stream, are rare. The Blackstone river below Worcester is probably the only one in this class in New England ; and this case is, perhaps, the most instructive one that can be referred to in considering the discharge of the Newton sewage into Charles river.
The drainage area of Blackstone river, down to the outfall of the Worcester sewers, is about fifty-four square miles. The city has about fifty thousand inhabitants, of whom about forty thousand live in houses connected with the sewers. There is also rather a large inflow of manufacturing refuse, especially from woolen mills.
The result is, that the stream is polluted to a highly- objectionable extent. As it flows down the valley towards Pawtucket, it furnishes power for an immense amount of manufacturing, and it receives large quantities of filth from the mills and houses ; but it receives good water from its trib-
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utaries at a much more rapid rate. At Farmunsville, about ten miles below Worcester, the water is still bad; but the dilu- tion and other natural purifying agencies render the water tolerably good before it reaches Blackstone village, some fif- teen miles further down-stream; so that chemical analysis fails to detect any evidence of impurity sufficient to condemn the water at that place as unfit for domestic or any other use .*
The drainage area down to Farmunsville, is estimated at one hundred and thirty-eight square miles, - down to Blackstone at two hundred and seventy-six square miles ; and the popula- tions of the cities, villages, etc., now sewering into the river above these places respectively, is estimated at fifty-one thou- sand and fifty-five thousand one hundred.
At Lonsdale, the river water has been used until recently, for all operations in the bleaching of the finest muslins.
Similar comparisons in regard to many other streams give like results, - allowances being made as well as practicable for differences in manufacturing refuse, - but it would take too much space to report them here.
I estimate the drainage area of Charles river down to the Watertown Arsenal at two hundred and eighty nine square miles. But one-third of the water down to Newton Upper Falls is diverted through Mother brook. Deducting seventy- three square miles on this account, we have two hundred and sixteen square miles as the area, contributing fresh water at the Arsenal.
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