USA > Michigan > Wayne County > Detroit > The city of Detroit, Michigan, 1701-1922, Vol. I > Part 40
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FILTRATION IN THE UNITED STATES
The first municipal filter in the United States was built at Poughkeepsie, New York in 1874,-an uncovered slow sand type, of crude construction, with a capacity of three million gallons daily and was followed two years later by a simi- lar plant at Hudson, New York.
During the decade following, a few small filters, some of the slow sand type, and some of the enclosed pressure type, were installed but it was not until after 1892, following the publication of the exhaustive experiments on filtration by the Massachusetts State Board of Health, and the subsequent construction of the slow sand filters at Lawrence, Massachusetts, that the art of filtration be- came a real and recognized issue in this country, and this period marks the inception of a rapid and progressive increase in the population supplied with filtered water. In 1890 there were approximately but 300,000 people supplied with filtered water, while at present there are over twenty million inhabitants of the United States enjoying the benefits of filtered water supplies; and as a natural sequence, the typhoid fever death rate per 100,000 of urban population decreased from 48 in 1890 to 13 in 1917.
HYGIENIC RESULTS
As evidence of the direct effect of pure water on reducing typhoid fever, the . following data are submitted, giving statisties of the average typhoid fever death rates of a few of the large cities for periods of several years before, and several years subsequent to the introduction of filtered water :-
AVERAGE TYPHOID FEVER DEATII RATE PER 100,000
Before Filtration
After Filtration
Percentage of Reduetion
Cincinnati, Ohio
54
10
81%
Columbus, Ohio
83
16
80%
Louisville, Kentucky
58
17
71%
Lawrence, Massachusetts
122
17
86%
Minneapolis, Minnesota
35
4
88%
New Orleans, Louisiana
40
23
43%
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
63
20
68%
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
120
IS
85%
Hamburg, Germany
51
9
87%
The water supply of Detroit is remarkably good when the conditions surround- ing its souree are taken into consideration, but its turbidity periodically is far greater than aesthetic taste would desire and its bacterial content, while not high in numbers, evidences frequent indications of colon bacillus before chlorine is
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CITY OF DETROIT
introduced. Typhoid fever is well under control, the typhoid death rate being comparatively low, and it is improbable that any very great number of cases could be traced directly to the drinking water and no such high percentage of reduction can be expected in this city with the advent of filtered water, as has been shown in other localities mentioned where the prior conditions were so much worse, but it is fallacious to state, as has been claimed, that none of the typhoid cases emanate from the drinking water and that in consequence filtration will not im- prove the conditions. In 1914 hypochlorite was resorted to as a germicidal medium, followed a year later by chlorine gas, and this treatment has been con- tinued uninterruptedly to the present time, and despite the objections to the occasional taste imparted to the water, and jocular criticism of the chlorine highball, this treatment, although a poor substitute for filtration, must be given credit for its part in assisting to maintain the high health standard of Detroit. Reasonably conclusive evidence of this is shown by the health statistics. The average typhoid fever death rate was 22 per hundred thousand of population for eight years previous to 1914, while from 1914 to date, the period during which chlorine was used, the average was 11 per hundred thousand. It is apparent therefore, that the raw river water does present a menace to the health of the City.
DETROIT FILTRATION PLANT
The question of filtering the water for Detroit has been agitated for several years, but as in the case of many other communities it encountered considerable opposition, due largely to a lack of true knowledge of the conditions, or a proper conception of the attainable results, and in some cases possibly to that innate spirit of conservatism which decries every innovation. The experimental filter constructed in 1917 was a potent factor in educating the publie to the possibilities of filtration and in demonstrating the difference between a clear sparkling filtered water and the unfiltered tap water. When the question was presented to the public in August of this year, the vote on the bond issue,-one half of which was for the express purpose of constructiong a filtration plant- was overwhelmingly in its favor, and in consequence filtered water for Detroit soon will become an assured fact.
A general plan for the proposed filtration plant was prepared by the writer in 1916-17, founded on a careful study of existing works in their relation to the proposed plant, particularly with reference to the utilization of the Low Lift Pumping Station as a booster station pending completion of the filters, and based on the theory, then advanced, that Detroit River water could be successfully treated at a much higher rate than had been attempted previously-a rate of from 160 million to 180 million gallons per acre having been advocated as feasible. The installation of the experimental filter was recommended solely to test this hy- pothesis and the results obtained through the operation of the plant have fully demonstrated the soundness of this theory.
EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
Without attempting to enter into a detailed statement of daily or monthly results obtained by the test filter, it seems advisable to submit in the briefest manner possible a resume of the salient points deduced, and the average of one year's operation,- January to December 1919 inclusive,-is selected for this
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CITY OF DETROIT
purpose. During the period under consideration the test filter was operated at rates varying from 154 to 208 million gallons per aere per day, the average rate being 170 million and while positive conelusions cannot be drawn, there were in- dieations that the highest rate was getting beyond the limits of conservative safety. The following tabulation gives the average results of one year's opera- tion in concise form :
River Water
Filtered Percentage Water of Removal Aver. Average
Max.
Turbidity-parts per million
380
38
0.0
100%
Bacteria-Agar 37°-24 hrs. per C. C ..
270
23
2.8
88%
Bacteria-Agar 20°-48 hrs. per C. C .. . .
3100
167
13.0
80%
Bacteria-Gelatine 20°-48 hrs. per C. C .. .
2900
167
18.0
90%
B. Coli per 100 tests of 10 C. C ..
18.3
1.3
93%
The use of agar at body temperature as a culture medium is supposed to be restrictive in its action, limiting the results to indications of pathogenic and in- testinal bacteria, while the other media will indicate all the saprophite organisms which are normal to water, but not toxie. The colon bacillus group would in- clude typhoid germs, but is not necessarily proof of their existence.
It should be noted that the results recorded were obtained without the use of any sterilizing ageney, and in all probability the added application of chlorine in quantities too minute to be perceptible would have given a final efficiency ap- proximating one hundred per cent. The proposed Filtration Plant is expected to produce results at least equal to the experimental one.
FINAL FILTER PLANS
During the absence of the writer for a period of nearly two years certain general plans were prepared and a report submitted covering a complete filtration plant. Upon returning to the problem, after said absence, the original plans prepared in 1916-17 were again investigated and carefully compared, from the viewpoint of construction as well as operation, and the conclusion reached that these original plans provided for a more compact, more economical and more workable plant than was possible by any of the other plans which had been prepared and submitted in the interim, and in consequence the original plans have been adhered to in practically every detail except where equipment pre- viously ordered necessitated a change.
The general design of the new filtration plant is divided into three separate structures, first: the Low Lift Pumping Station; second, the Coagulation Basin, Filter Beds and Wash Water Tanks all combined under one roof; and third, the Filtered Water Reservoir.
The proposed filter for Detroit will be the largest single rapid sand filtration plant in the world. The plans in their entirety contemplate a plant having a daily filtering capacity of from 320 million to 360 million gallons, with provisions for meeting peak loads of short duration up to a 400 million gallon rate. No provision has been planned for any future extensions to the filter because when the average daily consumption approximates 300 million gallons, the limits of capacity of the intake tunnel and the pumping equipment, as well as the filter plant, will have been reached, and any further development on the present site would be injudicious if not impossible.
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CITY OF DETROIT
LOW LIFT PUMPING STATION
The Low Lift Pumping Station which now is under construction is 63 feet by 175 feet located immediately over the ten foot diameter intake conduit, the latter being torn out for the full length of the station. The water will flow from the conduit into the screen ehamber at the southerly end of the station where seven electrically operated revolving screens, each 6 feet wide by 25 feet high from base to normal river level will serve to intercept all coarse floating material and iee formation, provision being made for cleaning the screens while in operation. The screening element is composed of copper wire 14 B. W. gauge, three meshes to the ineh, which leaves clear openings about one quarter inch square, and provides a elear water way through the screens in the ratio of seven to one of the eross sectional area of the intake conduit. From the screen chamber the water will flow into the suction well 26 feet wide by 11 feet deep directly under the floor of the pumping station.
The station will be equipped with five motor operated centrifugal pumps hav- ing a combined capacity of 465 million gallons, designed to deliver water to the mixing chamber of the coagulation basin against a head of about thirty feet. Arrangements have been made to utilize this station as a Booster Station to furnish water to the suction pipes of pumping engines in the old station should a combination of extremely high consumption and low river water make such service necessary prior to completion of the filter plant. The engine floor will be 20 feet below ground level, a broad balcony extending around the station at the entrance level.
FILTERS
The Filtration works proper are all under one roof in a structure 480 feet wide by 810 feet long, with a three story building at the center of the north end which forms the main entrance to the filters, and constitutes the tower for the wash water tanks, providing also space for the chemical and bacteriological laboratory and other offices. Immediately south of the entrance building are the filter beds occupying a space 480 feet by 270 feet and south of these the coagulation basins, with the mixing chamber and chemical feed and storage space between.
The mixing chamber is considerably smaller in proportion to the capacity of the plant than those which have been provided in most recent filter installa- tions, but is designed to provide thorough and rapid mixing at high velocities, by means of a diversified system of baffles. The chamber is 18 feet wide and 240 feet long, covered for the greater portion of its length so the water may start through it under a slight pressure. Alternate sets of vertical and horizontal baffles are placed throughout the full length of the channel, and as the coagulant solution is introduced where the water flows in from the low lift station, the re- sult will be a perfect admixture by the time the coagulation basins are reached.
Chemical bins and mixing apparatus and chemical storage space are provided above the mixing chamber, dry feed chemical mixers being used instead of large solution tanks.
The coagulation basin which is divided into two equal parts, covers a space 480 feet wide by 525 feet long, and has a total capacity of 30 million gallons, providing a subsidence period of over two hours when the whole filter is operated at its maximum rate. During cleaning periods, which probably will not occur more than onee a year, one section of the basin will be closed off while the other section remains in operation.
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CITY OF DETROIT
Each seetion of the coagulation basin is divided for the greater portion of its length by a baffle wall, so that the coagulated water flows at a low velocity a distance equal to twice the length of the basin. The bottoms are sloped to low points where mud valves permit slushing the accumulated sediment into the sewer.
On account of prevailing low winter temperatures, the coagulating basin will be covered and a steel trussed roof type of construction was adopted as affording a better opportunity for observation of coagulating effeets, and also permitting a more pleasing architectural treatment at no additional cost. This arrange- ment makes the external elevation of both filters and coagulation basins practi- cally the same.
Between the coagulation basin and the filter beds there extends a coagulated water conduit for the full width of the structure from which the coagulated water flows into each of the conduits feeding a double tier of eight filter beds.
The filter consists of eighty beds each having 1088 square feet effective sand area, divided into five double rows of eight beds with a pipe gallery between each double row, the operating floor forming the cover for the pipe galleries. Each bed is one-fortieth of an aere, and has a filtering capacity of four million gallons daily at 160 million gallon rate or four and one half million gallons at 180 million gallon rate. The filter is covered with a steel trussed roof, having continuous raised monitors over the operating galleries, thereby affording provision for ample light and ventilation.
Arrangments for sterilization through the medium of liquid chlorine is pro- vided in a space over one of the filter beds on the westerly side where, if found necessary, chlorine can be introduced at the end of the main filtered water col- leetor before it enters the filtered water reservoir.
All water conduits up to the point where the water is delivered on to the filter beds through 24 inch gate valves are of conerete, and in the design of these the effort has been to convey the coagulated water to the beds with the least dis- turbance possible to prevent the breaking up of the "floo." All conduits for . the collection of the filtered water and its conveyance to the filtered water reservoir are of conerete also.
The wash water troughs are of cast iron, 34 feet long, extending from the rear end of the filter bed to the wash water channel at the front or gallery end of the beds, and supported at the centre from a beam, which forms a walk across the middle of the beds.
The strainer system will be a manifold system of cast iron pipes, branching from two main cast iron collecting pipes built partially into the conerete bottom. The type of strainers, whether perforated pipes or strainer cups, will be de- termined later, depending upon the results of some investigations as well as upon the economie aspect of the situation.
Each filter bed has separate control, manipulated from an operating table placed opposite each bed and directly above the pipe gallery. All valves are hydraulically operated, but the large sluice gates will have motor control.
The filtrate from each bed flows through a rate controller into the filtered water conduits under the pipe gallery floor, which in turn empty into the main filtered water collector which traverses the building from east to west under the filter beds and pipe galleries and across the north end of the Low Lift Pumping Station into the Filtered Water Reservoir.
The filtering medium will consist of about 14 inches of gravel placed around
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CITY OF DETROIT
and above the strainer system, in even layers varying in size from 11/2 inch at the bottom to 1-10 inch at the top. Over this will be spread 24 to 26 inches of sand . 0.40 to 0.90 millimeters, having a uniformity coefficient of 1.6 to 1.7 and an effec- tive size of 0.40 to 0.50.
FILTERED WATER RESERVOIR
The filtered water reservoir, which will occupy the site of the existing settling basin, will be an all concrete structure with flat slab reinforced concrete floor and roof, the latter supported on concrete columns. The roof will be covered with earth and sodded or seeded to form an addition to the park area to be utilized either for tennis courts or other recreational purposes. The reservoir when full will contain forty million gallons, and will serve as a balancing factor to meet the fluctuating conditions of consumption without disturbing the rate of filtration.
GENERAL CONSTRUCTION
Owing to the unstable nature of the soil the whole filter structure will have to be supported on a pile foundation, this portion of the work now being under construction. A number of test piles were driven, and borings made, and the in- formation derived therefrom proved conclusively that piling would be necessary under all portions of the structure. As the greater portion of the filter foundation is above low water level of the river, concrete piles were called for, and the con- traet was awarded for "Raymond" piles, a type in which a tapering steel shell is first driven, and the shell poured with concrete. As the work progressed it was found that the character of the sub-soil changed radically in comparatively short distances. In some instances piles less than thirty feet long gave ample bearing values, while at points twenty-five feet distant forty foot piles did not attain that degree of stability considered requisite to the proper support of the superim- posed load.
As the limit of length of the Raymond pile is about thirty-eight feet, it be- came necessary to furnish some substitute, and composite piles are being used in all areas when a penetration of thirty-eight feet shows insufficient stability. The composite pile consists of a wooden pile 45 to 55 feet in length which is driven first, and is followed by fifteen feet of concrete pile, the connection between the two sections being formed by a tenon nine inches diameter and eighteen inches long turned on the head of the wooden pile and the insertion of four five-eighth inch twisted steel rods driven into the head of the pile to a depth of twenty inches and projecting up into the concrete eighteen inches. The result is a pile having a total length of from sixty to seventy feet with the wooden portion well below the water line.
All the filtration structures are of reinforced concrete up to the water level in the coagulation basin and filter beds. The super-structure will be of face brick and the exposed concrete walls will be veneered with brick in order to produce a pleasing exterior.
CONCLUSION
In view of the phenomenally rapid growth of Detroit and vicinity it is impossible to predict with any degree of accuracy what the future will re- quire, but before the average consumption approaches the stated quantity of 300,000,000 gallons, a new intake crib and tunnel farther up the shore of Lake St. Clair with a long gravity conduit and pumping stations in the northerly Vol. 1-25
386
CITY OF DETROIT
and northwesterly part of the city and a second filtration plant somewhere . between the intake and the first pumping station probably will be the solution.
Discussion has been rife for years in advocacy of going to Lake Huron for the source of supply, but a casual investigation confirms the self-evident fact that the cost of execution of such a project would be out of all proportion to the benefits derived. With an ample supply of water in close proximity to the city, which can be purified by means of filtration at a very small fraction of the expense that would be entailed in bringing the supply from Lake Huron, it would seem almost futile to argue the question, and any engineer who would seriously advocate the Lake Huron scheme, would of necessity expose him- self to the probability of merited adverse eritieism, particularly as no saving in operating expenses ean be effected as pumpage costs would be the same, or possibly greater.
INTRODUCTION OF GAS
Before the days of gas manufacture, Detroit passed through all the lighting experience of wax tapers, tallow dips, star and stearine eandles, whale and lard oil, eamphene and burning fluid and, at a later period, commencing in 1861, went extensively into the use of kerosene. Silas Farmer wrote that in 1850, over a year before gas was manufactured elsewhere, H. R. Johnson made gas for his hotel at the foot of Third Street. The first gas company was organ- ized in 1849, but did not put its product upon the market until two years later. The first company was called the City of Detroit Gaslight Company, but was reorganized in 1851 as the Detroit Gaslight Company and under that and other names has been in continuous operation ever since. In September, 1851, the streets were for the first time lighted with gas. The works were located on the north side of Woodbridge Street, between Fifth and Sixth. In 1867 new works were erected at the foot of Twenty-first Street. In 1871 an op- position company, called the Mutual Gaslight Company, was incorporated and built works on the eastern river front near Meldrum Avenue. The usual re- sult of this kind of competition followed, with streets torn up for two sets of pipes, and with uncertainty as to future prices of the produet. For a time the consumers prospered. The old company had been charging $3.50 per thou- sand feet for its produet, but with the advent of the new company it eame down to $2.50. As competition became keener, there were progressive reductions until the priee came down to 50 cents a thousand as the standard, while the city and a few favored customers paid 10 cents. This sort of competition was, of course. ruinous, and the companies came to a "gentlemen's agreement," under which the Mutual Company was to supply all customers east of Wood- ward Avenue and the City Company all west of that thoroughfare. Rates went up again and the complaints of the people also went up against poor gas and a high price. Then natural gas from the Ohio fields came into use and a new company was organized to supply that produet, which remained largely in use until 1893, when the pressure began to fail. About this time Mayor Pingree took a hand in the business in the interest of the public. On a fairly well sustained charge that the two artificial gas companies were violating the ordinanee under which they were operating, he practically foreed a consolida- tion. The price of gas for lighting was reduced from $1.50 a thousand to $1.00 net, and gas for fuel to 80 cents. Provision was made for further reductions as the consumption inereased. Under this provision, the price has since been
.
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CITY OF DETROIT
reduced to 79 cents net for small consumers, and lower rates for those using large amounts. At present the company supplies gas for light, power and nu- merous other uses under the name of the Detroit City Gas Company. The company is constantly expanding in every direction to meet the growth of the city and the needs of the increased number of consumers.
EXPERIMENTS IN STREET LIGHTING
The advisability of lighting the streets for the safety and convenience of the citizens was first broached in 1827, but it took eight years to devise and perfect a plan. This involved the use of twenty sperm oil lamps, which num- ber was soon afterwards increased to forty. Interest in the matter soon sub- sided and after three months the lamps were allowed to go out. The use of naphtha lamps for the streets was next tried in 1877. The combination of the naphtha and gas lights supplied the needs of the city for over thirty years, or until electricity began to come into use.
The Brush Electric Light Company was incorporated in 18SO by Wells W. Leggett, George N. Chase, and William M. Porter. The company was re- organized in December, 1881. A small dynamo was set up in the Free Press basement and current supplied to a few subscribers on lower Woodward Avenue. about fifteen lights in all. In 1SS2 a franchise was granted to the Brush Elec- tric Light Company to construct lines in the streets, and in June of that year the company proposed to light the central portion of the city at 50 cents per lamp per night, as per moonlight schedule. Up to this time the gas and naphtha lights had been put out whenever the moon was timed to rise, even if the sky was so cloudy that the moon could not be seen. For that year the influence of the gas company, with that of a host of lamplighters and their friends, and the natural hesitation about entering into a comparatively untried method of street lighting, led to a rejection of the Brush Company's proposal and gas and naphtha still glimmered in the streets. The Brush Company put up one tower in Cass Park, as an object lesson, and the next year renewed its prop- osition.
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