Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 February 1891 — SCIENTIFIC SEWERAGE. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

SCIENTIFIC SEWERAGE.

A CITY WITH A MODEL SEWERAGE SYSTEM. Proper Drainage of Towns and Cities a Question of. Vital Municipal Importance —A Sketch of the Work Accomplished at Pullman, Ill.—lts Suggestive Value.

ULLMAN is the , most remarkable < basin' ss enterprise m>f this or.any age. /its entire popula- ' tion of working people are sharers to a greater d egree than ever before in the results of good work. These benefits come in better . homes than the ■ people could have hoped for by their own unaided es- ) forts. All m o flic rn conveniences , such as gas, water, and perfect drainage and sewerage, together with the

best of libraries, schools, churches, stores, and markets, and every facility for rational amusements are found here. This new city marks an era in the history of human labor —an era which carries workmen to a higher level. The example set by its founder in his demonstration that capital can profitably take far better care of labor than it has heretofore done, cannot but be of incalculable benefit to the whole human race, and when every stone of these structures shall have crumbled into dust, the Pullman idea will go down the ages, “down the ringing grooves of change,” as one of the world’s best thoughts and great benefactions. ITS SITUATION. Pullman is situated upon the west shore of Lake Calumet, fourteen miles south of the Chicago Court House, where the Pullman interests have about 4.000 acres of land. It is reached by the Illinois Central Railway from Chicago Lake Caiumet is three and a half miles long by a mile and a half in width, and connects with Take Michigan by the Calumet River. It is the intention, eventually. to make a harbor of this lake. The land upon which the city stands is blue clay, ninety feet in-depth, resting upon lime rock, and its surface is from nine to twenty feet above the lake level. HISTORICAL. Work was begun upon the town in May, 1880, and the first family came here Jan. 1, 1881, and it now has a population of 11,000. The present industries here are the Pullman Car Works, which manufacture cars of every kind, such as passenger, freight, street, palace And sleeping ears, and they are the largest ear shops in the world, employing over 4,000 operatives. The Allen Paper Car Wheel Works, the Union Foundry, the Pullman Iron and Steel Works, the Standard Knitting M,ills, the Paint Works, the Terra Cotta Wyrks, the Screw Factory, and the Drop Forge •nd Foundry Company’s Works, 1 are other industries now hero, and they employ, with the Car Works, 5,500 workmen. Other industries are negotiating to come to Pullman. THE DRATNAGE. Pullman is the only city of the world built scientifically and artistically in every part, and is exceptional in ttys respect. In every other street running ■east and west there are brick mains laid ■to Lake Calumet. From the intermediate streets as summits, laterals are laid in the north and south streets leading to the mains. The mains and laterals 1 take the atmospheric water directly into Lake Calumet ( The down spouts from the buildingsjind the street catch basins readi y carry off these waters. No sewage goes ,into these drains, and the/are Intended to carry nothing but rain syaters. MR. GEOROE M. PULLMAN. One cannot well speak of this city without mention of its founder and builder, though he is so widely known that such mention might seem unnecessary. We herewith present his portrait. Said Victor Hugo: “Fifty is the old age of youth, but it is the youth of age. ” Though President Pullman has turned the half-century point in the number of his years, he is in the prime of a vigorous manhood, and is regarded by his pee s as one of the ablest executive offi•cerß in this hemisphere. By nature a ■leader of men, he is clear, capable, and so . self-reliant as to seem imperious to those not intimate with him. He handles vast interests with apparent ease. His time is about equally divided between New York and Chicago, though bis lesidence is in Chicago. His new city is a favorite enterprise, and one to which he has given much careful thought. Ho Is the typical American executive officer. AN AGE OF CITIES. In this age of city building the question of the proper sewerage of towns has become one of great and growing importance. Twenty-five per cent, of the population of our country resides in cities having a population of 10,000 and 1 upward, but when we include those who reside in smaller towns, villages and hamlets, we find not less than 40 per ■cent, of our population urban in character. A recent letter from Supt. Porter, of 1

the Census Bureau, states that there are now 447 cities iu the United States each of which has a population of 8,000 and upward. Sanitary questions are now the most vital ones with which cities, villages and hamlets have to deal. And these questions are everywhere attracting deep And earnest atteutiou As yet rwidenta

of Pullman do not own their homes, but lease them from the company; but it Is the intention to permit them to purchase homes in the near future. IMPORTANCE OF SEWERAGE. . When any territory becomes'densely settled, like Massachusetts, people readily begin to sep and understand the necessity of preventing the, pollution of streams and lakes with sewage, anl that commonwealth is grappling with this subject in a way that must lead other State?, very soon, to make it one of State if not of national Interest and action. Just what ought to be done with sewage is by no means a settled question, each locality presenting its peculiar

problems for solution. But one thing is well understood and that is, that sewage ought not to be allowed to go into lakes and streams. Among the methods of disposal, and the one of which it is the chief object of this article to speak, is that of land -purification It is an old process, traces of it being found in the ruins of ancient Nineveh. THE GROWTH OF A TOWN. Here, for the first time in the building of cities, the drainage and sewerage preceded the population. The ordinary small city is a haphazard collection of buildings, whose inartistic forms and relations would, as likely as not, be improved by an earthquake. The inhabitants of such places, at the outset, have no nqore ideas or knowledge of sanitary needs than Laplanders, and not until

the whole soil of tho place becomes saturated with the accumulated filth of years, and an epidemic improves society by removing the pachyderms and amphibious bipeds, and with them some whose lives'could not well be spared, do those who are left realize the necessity of sewerage, and adopt some imperfect and inadequate method of relief. SEWERAGE PIPING HERE. The great value of the work done here is principally suggestive, and is studied by travelers aud scientific men of every continent. At the outset it was decided that it would never do to permit sewage to flow into Lake Calumet, as it would make a cesspool of that body of water, and to obviate such a result, the mode of disposing of the Pullman sewage here outlined was decided upon, and pipes were

laid in every other street running east and west, and lying between the streets having brick mains for atmospheric water; these sewers are made with vitrified pipe, laid deep enough to run under all surface drains which, as laterals, lead into main sewers rujining north and south to a reservoir under the Water Tower, which they enter at sixteen feet below 7 the surface of the ground. These sewer pipes vary from six to eighteen inches in diameter. The lateral pipe for carrying the sewage of a block of dwellings runs in the alley and is only six inches in diameter, and has a fall of from four to five inches in a hundred feet. The smallness of these laterals insures a scour which keeps them clean, but provision has been "made for flushing the pipes should they require it. Service pipes from houses and lots, provided with suitable catch-basins in the rear of dwellings, each basin connected with from four to six houses, convey the sewage from sinks and closets to these alley laterals. THE RESERVOIR The sewage goes by gravity from buildings to the reservoir under the Water Tower. This reservoir is 60 feet in diameter and 15 feet deep, and holds over 300,000 gallons. The sewage is pumped from it as fast as received, and before sufficient time elapses for fermentation to take place, standing over the reservoir the visitor never detects anything unpleasant, the air being just' as pure as it is in the Corliss engine room, the only odor being that from the oil used about the pumps. THE SEWAGk. The sewage fiom dwellings averages probably from 120 to 130 gallons a day for each person of the population. Of the 1,8J0,000 gallons pumped every twenty-four hours (the daily average for 1890>, the excess above the amount coming from dwellings is from the shops and factories. This seems a large amount of

sewage for a population of ll,Co|kbut when it Is remembered that every tenement in the city is provided with the best of water closets and s nks, that the faucets for obtaining water are all inside the houses, andjthatabout ten percent of the dwellings are provided with bathrooms, it will be seen that a large amount of sewage per capita is unavoidable. FARM END OF IRON SEWAGE PIPE. The sewage is pumped from the reservoir through a twenty-inch cast iron pipe to a sewage farm about thrfee miles south of the city. At the farm end of this pipe the sewage goes into a receiving tank made of boiler iron, which is set a few feet above tne surface of the ground.

Through the center of this tank there is a screen in an oblique position, through the meshes of which substances more than half an inch in diameter cannot pass and get into the piping in the farm. The sewage waters pass through this screen and thence into the distributing pipes, a pressure of not more than ten pounds being allowed upon those pipes. See drawing of the screening tank and pressure regulating valve at the farm enu of the iron main from the pumping works. THE SEWAGE FARM AND ITS PIPING. One hundred and forty acres of land have been thoroughly piped and underdrained for the reception and purification of sewage with which these acres are irrigated. Hydrants are placed at suitable intervals so that the distribution can be conveniently effected. All organic matter in the sewage is taken up by the soil and the growing vegetation, and the water, making from 20u to 600 parts of the sewage, runs off through underdrains to ditches which carry these filtered waters into Lake Calumet. Where the sewage water, purified by filtering through the soil, leaves the drains, it is as clear arid sparkling as spring water, and purer than the water from the surface wells used by people on neighboring farms. In winter the sewage runs upon one field or upon one filter bed and then upon another, the filtering processes appearing as perfect as in summer. Thus are waste products utilized, being largely transmuted by vital chemistry into luxuriant vegetable forms. The most profitable crops for this farm have been found to be onions, cabbage and celery. In Europe the question is, at how little expense can such a farm bo operated, the primary object being the necessary disposal of sewage, and the proceeds from crops raised merely diminishing operating expenses. A European sewage farm operated at a profit is the exception and not the rule. COST OF OPERATING THE PUMPS. The cost of operating one of these pumps for twenty hours and pumping 1,800,000 gallons of sewage is as follows: Cost of coal used 51.73 Cost of oH ' and waste 57 Engineer's wagaa.„ 3.75 Total ........56.05 This is a trifle less than 33 cents for pumping 100,000 gallons. During the months of last September,

October, and November the. daily age of sewage pumped was a little over 2,000,000 ghllohs. ’ ‘ ‘ t<ii , ' There are no saloons, gainbling houses, or other debasing and hurtful agencies here to allure men, but the beautiful library, theater, Arcade, playgrounds, lake, and park-llke avenues offer many attractions. " The society is excellent, and the Pullman Military Band is considered the best in the State. Therp are now aboljt' forty* secret societies, clubs, and organizations for social purposes, as well as eight church societies in Pullman. With these improved surroundings men arc able not only to do more and better work, as is seen in the fact that their average earnings here are larger than in any other place where similar work is done, but to do it comfortably in these finely arranged i and equipped shopsand factories. While I they are at work their children are in the best of schools and their families are sheltered in superior homes. As a social and business experiment the place attracts the attention of philosophers, political economists, students of social science, and capitalists in every civilized •i country. It is a business and social success. Duane Doty.

GEORGE M. PULLMAN.

ONE OF THE PULLMAN SEWAGE PUMPS.