Case Study: Water Resources in the USA

It is useful to evaluate the cause and effect nature of environmental issues and solutions to those issues. Water resources history in the USA is a good case study that illustrates many of the institutional issues that occurred as we struggled (and still struggle) with controlling pollution. Below is a brief history of water resources in the USA from an institutional perspective:

o To know where we're going it's good to know where we've been
o Pre-19th century:
- up to the latter half of the 19th century, society depended on local water supplies
- water consumption was approximately 3 to 5 gallons per day per capita
- the wastewater was disposed, however it was convenient
- the problems included health, and aesthetics
- storm water sewers were in large cities but small cities just had street gutters
- this system worked because of a small decentralized population
o 1820s to 1880s:
- system stopped working for demographic and technological reasons
- urban growth escalated
- cities had to pipe in water from distant sources
- Philadelphia built the first waterworks in 1802
- by 1860 the 16 largest cities had waterworks
- water closet was first introduced in the US in 1833 and by 1880 in 25% of urban homes
- paved roads contributed to more runoff
- there was no simultaneous construction of sewers
- privy vaults, cesspools gutters, and storm sewers if they existed were used
o As a result:
- health impacts, aesthetics, and nuisance all increased
- the system stopped working
- contagionists vs anticontagionists views on disease led to a controversy on what was best solution to health problems
- controversy finally led to sanitary sewerage in the late 19th and early 20th centuries
- big technology design question was whether to use combined or sanitary sewers
- the answer depended on the amount of stormwater runoff for that community
o Next problem:
- sewerage led to streams and other water bodies
- engineers believed in the self-purifying nature of water
- typhoid fever epidemics worsened
o Options to solve problem:
- use distant "clean" watershed for water supply
- treat wastewater
- treat water
o late 19th C, early 20th C:
- by beginning of WW1 the engineering view recorded in Engineering News Record:
- use dilution in the streams to deal with wastewater
- use water filtration to treat municipal water
- no wastewater treatment
- combined sewers in large cities, sanitary sewers (no storm sewers) in small cities
- 100 gallons per day per capita by 1880
o Early to mid 20th C:
- Birth of sanitary engineering as a profession in early 20th C
- mid 20th C finally decided to implement wastewater treatment
- advancement in wastewater treatment dictated by federal regulations under the Clean Water Act
- In 1985, 183 gallons per capita per day