Sep 3, 2017
Swimming Pool and Filteration Plant, McKeesport, Pa.
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Swimming Pool and Filteration Plant, McKeesport, Pa.
"CHLORINE AND TAR GIVE WATER THAT BAD TASTE," Toronto Star. September 9, 1912. Page 1 & 13. ---- Star's Chemist Able to Produce That Flavor Which Puzzled the City Hall. ---- CHLORINE ALONE WILL NOT DO IT --- Several Sampled the Concoction, and There Was No Mistaking the Likeness. ---- IS ALL RIGHT TO-DAY ---- Cutting Down Quantity of Chlorine Has Produced Quite a Difference. ----
"The tar-covered sand boxes in each of the 12 filter beds have nothing whatever to do with the carbolic taste so apparent in the city water." - COMMISSIONER OF WORKS HARRIS. "I believe that the carbolic taste is due to the action of the chlorine in the water on the tar which was coated over the sand boxes since the plant ceased operations some months ago." - DR. HASTINGS, Μ.Ο.Η. "There may be something in the filtration plant which is causing this unpleasant taste in the water, but we don't know yet."- DR. NASMITH, DIRECTOR OF CIVIC LABORATORIES.
Chemical experts of the City Hall have failed to explain the carbolic taste which rendered the city water unpalatable last week. A temporary remedy has been found by decreasing the amount of colon-killing chlorine to the danger line; but the use of the amount of chlorine formerly employed to give sterile water may bring on water troubles at any time. No solution has therefore been reached.
In the make-up of the filtration plant the only change which has taken place since the plant was closed down for cleaning purposes is the addition of liberal coats of tor to the outside of twelve sand boxes which stand in the filter beds. Has the presence of this tar in the filter beds caused the carbolic taste? Three answers to this interesting question are given above.
Star's Chemist Produces Taste. Let the question be put in another form which to many readers may appear to convey a distinction without a difference: "Will a mixture of chlorinated water and tar give a carbolic taste?" To this question The Star can give a most positive answer in the affirmative.
Remsen's Organic Chemistry under the subject of tar says: "Wood tar, contains small quantities of carbolic acid, chemically known as phenol.
Dr. Hastings recently stated: "The difference in the taste of carbolic acid and of chlorine is as great as light is from darkness."
Both these statements are amply borne out by the experiments of a chemical student of the University of Toronto, who devoted Saturday afternoon in The Star office to the mixing of water, chlorine, and tar, in varying quantities. For three hours The Star's chemist continued to make mysterious movements with a series of test tubes, mixing bowls, and his own organs of taste and smell. He then emerged with a quantity of what appeared to be ordinary drinking water in a test tube. It was his treat, and the receptacle was passed around the office for each man to take a nip, and a nip was as good as three fingers.
"Water gone bad again?" asked one.
"Same old carbolic taste," said another.
No Mistaking Flavor. All agreed that the taste was identical with that found in the city water on Thursday and Friday. The chemist explained that this flavor had produced by mixing water and chloride of lime in the ratio about two parts of chloride lime to about 1,000,000 parts of water, and one part of tar to about 3,000 parts of water. The tar used was in liquid form. whereas the tar found in the filtration plant is hardened. This is the only difference in conditions in the filtration plant mixture and in The Star Office laboratory.
The Experiment Without Tar. Five persons detected the carbolic taste in the first sample. An experiment was then made without tar, but with ten times the amount of chloride of lime used in the previous experiment. There was absolutely no carbolic taste; but the chlorine experiment had a decidedly different taste from that of the former mixture.
Differing causes may bring the same results. These experiments establish the fact that tar, chlorine, and water, produce a concoction similar in taste to that mixture which was recently served up to the citizen through his house tap. These same ingredients are to be found in the filtration plant. Whether they were the cause of the carbolic taste so apparent a few days, the civic chemists must be left to decide.
How Water is Chlorinated. That the bad taste in the water for the past few days did not develop at the chlorination plant is the opinion of the men who have charge of the water-drugging process which is stationed about 200 yards across from the ferry dock at Hanlan's Point. The chlorination goes on steadily and the men say there has been nothing wrong with the plant.
The chloride of lime that "purifies" Toronto's drinking water, does not go in in the solid state. It is first dissolved and the solution is then run in from a tank. The pipe from the filtration plant to the John Street Pumping Station runs straight from the plant to the Chlorination Station, opposite the ferry dock, and thence across to John street. Out on the sand bar where the little isolated shed stands, a man is kept constantly on duty attending to the chlorination of the water.
Three Men On Duty. Three men divide the work into three eight-hour shifts. Their work consists chiefly in making the chlorine solution, and keeping the tank full. Making the solution is simply a matter of mixing the hypo-chloric powder in water, and this concoction is slowly but steadily run into the great pipe that conveys the water across the bay. Thus every gallon of water gets a little drop of the chemical. None of it escapes, but the result for the past week has not been good water. At the chlorination plant they say it has been working steadily for months without interruption, and if that is so the blame cannot well be laid on the men who watch the machine that drugs the water.
"Fine To-day," Says M. O. Н. "The water is fine this morning," said Dr. Hastings, M.O.Н., to The Star. "We have had no complaints this morning about the taste." The Doctor stated that they were using about the same proportion of chlorine to-day as on Saturday when the proportion was 112 per million.
“Must Take Shower Bath Daily Before Work At Water Plant,” Ottawa Citizen. April 18, 1932. Page 1. ---- This is Only One of Several Requirements of Employes at New Filtration Plant. No-smoking Rule Must Also be Strictly Observed. Careless Visitors. ---- How would you like to be compelled to take a shower bath every day before starting to work? That is one of several requirements of employes of the new water filtration plant on Lemieux Island. It is a sanitation measure, according to W. E. MacDonald, city waterworks engineer, who also says that smoking is strictly prohibited in the plant. Men working on the three daily eight-hour shifts must take a shower bath before going on-duty. Locker rooms equipped with shower baths have been installed in the plant for the use of the employes.
The no-smoking rule must be strictly observed, Mr. MacDonald stated to The Citizen. The engineer was considerably annoyed yesterday when he discovered that some of the visitors to the plant had been smoking and threw their burnt matches Into the big mixing tanks, through which the river water passes before going on to the sand filters.
Last evening three infants had the distinction of being the first in the city to be baptised in the filtered water. The baptisms took place in Fourth Avenue Baptist church.
False Bay views from Steenbras Water Treatment Plant Lookout Point in Gordon's Bay (2021-04-10)
False Bay views from Steenbras Water Treatment Plant Lookout Point in Gordon’s Bay (2021-04-10)
Situated on the opposite side of False Bay, finding Gordon’s Bay when travelling from Cape Town is easy enough thanks to the giant white ‘GB’ anchor and letters symbol emblazoned on the slopes of the Hottentots Holland Mountains that form the backdrop of our village. While the huge Steenbras Dam sitting at the top of that very same mountain is pretty much invisible if you are not flying overhead,…
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December 31, 1914: Great Lakes Pollution; 1914: Lowell Filtration Plant
December 31, 1914: Great Lakes Pollution; 1914: Lowell Filtration Plant
December 31, 1914: Municipal Journal article—Lake Pollution Increases Typhoid. Washington, D.C.-Pollution of the Great Lakes and tributary rivers is becoming a serious menace to health, according to the annual report of Surgeon General Rupert Blue, of the Public Health Service. He points out that about 16,000,000 passengers are carried each year over the Great Lakes, and that more than 1600…
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July 19, 1911: Home-Made Sanitary Drinking Cup and New York's Filtration Plant and Park
July 19, 1911: Home-Made Sanitary Drinking Cup and New York’s Filtration Plant and Park
July 19, 1911: Municipal Journal articles.
Home-Made Sanitary Drinking Cup.“With a view to eliminating the dangers of infection from the use of public drinking cups, a set of “plans and specifications” for the manufacture of a sanitary drinking vessel has been prepared. All that is necessary is a piece of paper, seven inches square, which, if folded properly, will form a drinking cup that will…
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April 27, 1916: Typhoid Outbreak After Fire at Filtration Plant
April 27, 1916: Typhoid Outbreak After Fire at Filtration Plant
April 27, 1916: Municipal Journalarticle. Typhoid Follows Burning of Filtration Plant. “South Fork, Pa.-South Fork has a typhoid fever epidemic. There are ten people ill with the disease now and a number of suspects are under observation. South Fork authorities say the sickness is the result of people not heeding the warning of the board of health to boil the water during the period in which the…
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December 31, 1914: Great Lakes Pollution; 1914: Lowell Filtration Plant
December 31, 1914: Great Lakes Pollution; 1914: Lowell Filtration Plant
Dover, Passenger and freight sidewheel, Great Lakes Ship, Registry No. US. 120796, Built 1890. Credit: Fr. Dowling, S.J. Marine Historical Collection.
December 31, 1914: Municipal Journalarticle—Lake Pollution Increases Typhoid. Washington, D.C.-Pollution of the Great Lakes and tributary rivers is becoming a serious menace to health, according to the annual report of Surgeon General Rupert Blue,…
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