[Report 1938] / Medical Officer of Health, Calne Borough.

  • Calne (England). Borough Council.
Date:
1938
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1938] / Medical Officer of Health, Calne Borough. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    11/30 (page 9)
    Drainage and Sewerage— Practically the whole of the developed portion of the Borough is now sewered, although there will always, of necessity, be a few houses, mostly isolated, which either drain into cesspools or are provided with earth closets. There were no new sewers laid during the year. The mileage of the town sewers is now eight, and the length of Outfall sewer is approximately two miles. Sewage Disposal— The Outfall works are situated at Conigre, about 1£ miles to the north-west of the town, and within the Rural District of Caine and Chippenham. These works were modernised in 1928 at a cost of approxi- mately £19,000 and consist of detritus chambers and con- tinuous flow sedimentation tanks in duplicate, four filters with rotary sprinklers fed from a central dosing chamber by automatic syphons; humus tanks and digestion tanks together with a 9 h.p. Blackstone Diesel oil engine with “unchokeable” sludge pump to raise the sludge, which is afterwards dried on sludge beds and subsequently burnt to a fine red ash. Unfor- tunately this ash has been found on analysis to have no com- mercial value. A Lea Recorder is provided at the inlet to the works and the average daily dry weather flow is about a quarter of a million gallons, thus showing a not inconsiderable ingress of subsoil water. The sewage effluent, which discharges into the River Marden just below Hazeland Mill and about 1 mile below the Outfall Works, is usually of a fairly high standard. A sample taken on the 18th August, by Dr. Jean Murray, an Assistant Medical Officer of Health for the County, showed the following analysis: Free and Saline Ammonia 0.15 parts per 1 Albuminoid Ammonia 0.14 do. Chlorine 71.20 do. Oxygen absorbed (4 hours) 1.04 do. Nitrogen as Nitrates 2.78 do. Dissolved Solids 166.00 do. Solids in suspension 3.30 do. Total Solids 169.30 do.