The Sterilisation Plant of the Jersey City Water Supply Co. at Boonton, N.J.

The Sterilisation Plant of the Jersey City Water Supply Co. at Boonton, N.J.*

自1908年9月,后面的部分过程s of water-purification has been in operation at Boonton, N. J., which I believe will be of great interest to scientists and to purveyors and consumers of water. The water treated is the supply of Jersey City, N. J., and is controled by the Jersey City Water Supply company. The process employed has been called a “sterilisation” process, but is properly one of disinfection. It consists in the addition to the water of socalled “bleach,” used in very minute quantities. It is the first time, to my knowledge, that such a process has been applied, as a permanent one, to a water supply. There is one instance on record in which the same process was used, as a temporary expedient, during a typhoid fever epidemic due to infected water supply This was at Maidstone, England, during the 1897 typhoid epidemic, when a solution of bleaching powder was used by Sims Woodhead for sterilising the Maidstone water supply. During an outbreak of typhoid fever in Lincoln, England, in 19041905, a solution of “chloros” (a commercial preparation of hypochlorite of soda) was used by Drs. Houston and McGowan, to sterilise the water going to the filters, and, also, to sterilise the reservoirs. In boththese instances good results were obtained. Dr. Rideal has also used solutions of bleach in connection with the Guildford, England, water supply, but only experimentally. Somewhat similar processes have also been tried, with more or less success, on the waters of the rivers Seine and Vanne in France and at Middlekerke and Ostend in Belgium. Rather extensive experiments were made with solutions of bleach and soda, in the early nineties, by Mauritz Traube, Alois Lode, Sickenberger, Kaufmann, Bassenge, Hunermann, Deiter and Bailner, their object being to obtain practically instantaneous sterilisation or disinfection of water for the use of travelers or troops in the field. Their results, although not attaining the end sought, were successful in establishing the efficiency of both calcium and soda chlorides as disinfectants of water. Electrolytic solutions of seawater, or salt have been used in a number of instances, as at Worthing, England; Nice, France, and at Poplar, England, for general disinfecting purposes, including street-watering; for application to sewage-effluent at Maidenhead, England; by Rideal, for application to sewage-effluent at Guildford, England; and by Woolf for the disinfection of sewage-effluent at Brewsters, N. Y., 'he disinfection of Jerome Park reservoir of the New York city water supply, and for general disinfection purposes at Havana and Vera Cruz. Solutions of bleach have been used for the disinfection of sewage or sewage-effluents on the river Brent in England; at Hertford, England; on the Hooghly river, India; at the Tittagurh installation near Calcutta, India, and at Guildford, England; by Schultz, of Hamburg, in connection with the effluents of hospital sewage works; by Phelps at Baltimore, Md., and Red Bank, N. J.; by Pratt and Kimberly at Camp Perry and other points in Ohio, and by others at numerous places, with generally successful results. No special discovery, therefore, is claimed in connection with the process in operation at Boonton, N. J. I do claim, however, that it is the first time that it has ever been used on any such scale, or as a continuous or permanent system of waterpurification, and I also claim that, as a result of the investigations made by us, certain facts in connection with the process have been obtained, which had not been heretofore recognised. The Jersey City water supply is obtained from the Rockaway river, a tributary of the Passaic. The supply is impounded in what is known as the Boonton reservoir, having a capacity of 8,500,000,000 gal., and is conveyed by a line consisting partly of concrete conduit, partly of tunnel and partly of steel pipe, a distance of 23 miles to Jersey City; the average draught being 40,000,000 gal. daily.

为了understand the causes which led up to the adoption of this system of purification, it will be necessary to go, very briefly, into history. In the year -1899 the city of Jersey City entered into a contract with a certain contractor for this water supply. That contractor at once transferred the contract to a corporation which he had organised for the purpose, called the Jersey City water Supply company. Work was started by that company; but, becoming financially embarrassed, it was forced to stop. Various attempts were made to finance the project; but all proved failures, until in the spring of 19U2 the New Jersey General Security company was induced to assume control of the Jersey City water Supply company and to fulfil its contract obligations. 1 he work was at once resumed and pushed vigorously to completion in the latter part of the year 19U4. In the meantime, however the city had started suit in the court of Chancery against the company, claiming that the work was not being done according to the specifications and contract. 1 he specifications in said contract with regard to the quality of the water were as follows : “The water to be furnished must be pure and wholesome for drinking and domestic purposes; and the works shall be so constructed and maintained by the contractor that the water delivered theretrom shall be pure and wholesome and free trom pollution deleterious for drinking and domestic purposes.”