Sewage disposal at Hanley. Report by County Medical Officer of Health on experimental disposal plant. Being an extract from his monthly report presented to the Sanitary Committee, July 2nd, 1904.

  • Staffordshire (England). County Council.
Date:
1904
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Sewage disposal at Hanley. Report by County Medical Officer of Health on experimental disposal plant. Being an extract from his monthly report presented to the Sanitary Committee, July 2nd, 1904. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    complete control and allow of adjustment for experimental purposes as regards the quantity delivered and the intervals of delivery. The method of distribution by fine sprays, even had such complied with the high standard desired, was out of the question, because of the nuisance which would un- doubtedly have been experienced by the adjoining residents from the fine spraying of a septic effluent over a large area. Having talked the matter over with Mr. Scott-Moncrieff, who has done so much excellent work in advancing both the science and technique of sewage disposal, he designed an apparatus which was ultimately fixed, and which has been at work in distributing the sewage on a circular filter throughout the time covered by the experiment. Later on, Mr. Willcox designed a mechanical distributor, which was fixed in connection with a rectangular filter, and that apparatus also has been at work throughout the experi- ment. I do not propose to comment upon the comparative merits of the two apparatus from a mechanical point of view, that being an engineering question, nor am I in a position to compare them from the point of view of capital cost and working expenses, but, from observations made throughout the experimental working of the plant, I can state that both complied with the stringent conditions as regards efficiency laid down in the first instance, and—I believe for the first time in the history of sewage disposal by artificial filtration—the distribution of the sewage was under complete control as regards the vital requirements of the biological process of purification.* The total area of the experimental filters amounts to half an acre, consisting of a circular quarter-acre bed fed by the Scott-Moncrieff Distributor, and a rectangular quarter- * As a matter of fact, owing to delay in the construction of the works at Hanley, a Scott-Moncrieff Distributor was in actual operation in connection with an experimental filter at the Birmingham, Tame, and Rea Joint Boards’ Disposal Works a month or two before the apparatus was in use at Hanley.