Protection of Water Supplies by Sewage Purification

Abstract

One of the most important questions confronting many of our cities today is that of securing and maintaining a water supply that is free from pathogenic organisms and otherwise suitable for domestic and industrial purposes. As our cities grow in size and increase in number, the problem becomes more complex for the reason that the water-courses of the country are used, on one hand, as a source of domestic supply, and on the other, as a means of sewage disposal. It is common practice for a city to take its water from a river at the upstream side and discharge it below the city as sewage. This dual use of a water-course has been accepted and recognized by the courts as coming within the rights of the riparian proprietor, but only in so far as the privileges claimed do not conflict with similar rights of others located on the same body of water.It is not always an easy matter, however, to decide where the rights of one party end and the lawful privileges of another begin. In the past, and to a certain extent at the present time, courts have been called upon to decided controversies arising from the use of streams as a means of disposing of sewage and other wastes. More recently many states have passed laws to regulate stream pollution and the results have been so satisfactory that it is believed that within a few years all t.hp "tQt;es will have laws on their statute books which will permit active control over the purity of the watercourses in the country within the boundaries of the states.One of the most important results that has come from the court decisions handed down and the state laws that have been passed in relation to stream pollution, has been the treatment of sewage as a means of protecting water supplies. It may be of interest in this connection to quote the fundamental principles given by Mont-

Microbiological control and other safety aspects of potable waters

“…Then in August, 1912, Congress authorized the Ohio River studies which were designed to "provide data that will eventually be used as a basis for framing the necessary laws for preserving interstate rivers of our country as a safe source of water supply for the large cities located on them." 12 The intimacy of water pollution and its control with the health of human beings was absolute. But in that same year a momentous event was quietly taking place with the first chlorination of a public water supply using liquid chlorine, 13 an event which was destined to remove the health onus from water pollution.…”