Cities, Rivers, Wastes and Biological Pollution

Rivers and Cities

Thames

TiberVenice

London

Rome

Seine

Paris

Hudson

NYC

Dependable Water Supply

Removal of Wastes

Rivers and Cities

History of Water Supply and Biological Pollution

Sumer 2500 B.C.

sewers waterways

Aqueduct

IrrigationAqueducts Sewers

Water Supply and Sewer Systems

Roman Aqueducts

255 miles of aqueducts

Stone, lined with cement

Water distributed throughlead pipes and logs

144 publiclatrines

1 million people

-lead pipes

-lead acetate

sugar of lead sweetener for wine

Lead (Plumbum)

Caligula, Nero, Commodus, Julius Caesar, Caesar Augustus

Domitian’s Fountain of leaded wine

Saturnine: an individual whose temperament has become uniformly gloomy and cynical.

Saturn: the deity of lead

Father of all metals

Possible cause of the dementia which affected Roman Emperors and Citizens.

Possible contributing factor to the Fall of the Roman empire

After the Fall

drinking water hauled in from springs outside the city limits

500 to 1500 A.D.

City wells fouled

Diverted WealthNeglect of infrastructure

reduced the population of the city of Rome from its high of over 1 million in ancient times to considerably less in the medieval era, reaching as low as 30,000

17th to 19th Centuries

Cesspools/outhousesLeaching

270,000 cubic meters of manure (Paris, 1780)

Offensive Odor And taste.

Deterioration of wells

Growth of Urban Populations

Graveyards in City Limits

“rank and offensive mold,mixed with broken bones andfragments of coffins”

Basil Hall, 1820

New York’s Trinity Church held 160,000 graves by 1830.

“Nearly every residence had a cesspit beneath the floors. In the best of homes the nauseating stench permeated the most elegant parlor.”

To river or street

Cesspits

London's sewers were open ditches sloped slightly to drain human wastes toward the River Thames

When cesspits filled to overflow, they were built to drain to the street by means of a crudely built culvert to a partially open sewer trench in the center of the street

Cesspits

Night Soil

Methane (CH4)

CH4 + 2O2 = CO2 + 2H2Olamps

Cesspits and Night Soil

Methanogenesis is the final step in the decay of organic matter under anoxic conditions

c.a. 1850

Southampton, 1849: "Explosions occurred in two separate locations where the men had the skin peeled off their faces and their hair singed”.

Anaerobic organisms: Exist in low oxygen

John Harrington1596

The Age of the Toilet

Alexander Cummings1775

19th Century

Not widely adopted until the mid to late 1800s

Thomas Crapper1866

By 1885, Boston had 100,000 toilets and thousands ofmiles of pipe carrying wastewater to rivers.

Effectively marketed the toilet

1859 Suspension of British Parliament

1861 Typhoid Epidemic

Toilets, Cesspools, Wastes and Urbanization

Connected with contaminated water

Thames River: mid-1800s

Wastewater to Rivers

Extra Credit:

1. The inventor of the toilet ___________________________

2. Built over 255 miles of aqueducts ____________________

3. The first sewer and water systems were built when?

4. Metal that may have contributed to dementia of Romans.

Disease

The World Health Organization indicates that every year more than 3.4 million people die as a result of water related diseases, making it the leading cause of disease and death around the world.

Most of the victims are young children, the vast majority of whom die of illnesses caused by organisms that thrive in water sources contaminated by raw sewage.

DiseasesResponsible pathogen

Route of exposure

Mode of transmission

Cholera Vibrio cholerae bacteria

gastro-intestinal

sewage, often waterborne

Botulism Clostridium botulinum bacteria

gastro-intestinal

food/water borne; can grow in food

Typhoid Salmonella typhi bacteria

gastro-intestinal

water/food borne

Hepatitis A Hepatitis A virus gastro-intestinal

water/food borne

Dysentery Shigella dysenteriae bacteria or Entamoeba histolytica amoeba

gastro-intestinal

food/water

Cryptosporidiosis Cryptosporidium parvum protozoa

gastro-intestinal

waterborne; resists chlorine

Polio polioviruses gastro-intestinal

exposure to untreated sewage; may also be waterborne

Giardia Giardia lamblia protozoa

gastro-intestinal

waterborne

Typhoid

Typhoid fever is an illness caused by thebacterium Salmonella Typhi and is transmitted by ingestion of food or water contaminated with feces from an infected person

1837, 1860-1865

186,000 people

The worst year was 1891, when the typhoid death rate was 174 per 100,000 persons

Cholera

Vibrio cholerae Occurs through ingesting food or water which is contaminated with cholera vibrios

In its most severe forms, cholera is one of the most rapidly fatal illnesses known

Intestinal disease

Shock from dehydration can occur in 4 to 12 hours

death within 18 hours to several days

8 major outbreaks from 1816 to 1896 affecting mostly Europe and N. America

1852-1860 - Third cholera pandemic mainly affected Russia, with over a million deaths

Cholera in the U.S.

Croton Aqueduct System50 miles of aqueduct

Epidemic of 1832 killed over 6,500 people in London and 3500 in NY

ORT solution contains:

sodium chloride (NaCl)trisodium citrate dehydratepotassium chloride (KCl)glucose

Intravenous Fluid Therapy

mortality rate of cholera dropped from 70% to 40%

1831

Sodium chloride (NaCl)Citric acidPotassium phosphateglucose

Gatorade

Treatment: Rehydration Therapy

Oral Rehydration Therapy (1960s)

The Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 – mortality rate of 3%

Currently, WHO recommends a 3-day, 12-dose course ofantibiotic treatment with either tetracycline or erythromycin

50% mortality rate among its healthy adult victims

"Cholera was a scourge not of mankind but of the sinner." Bernhard J. Stern, Society and Medical Progress (1941)

Cause of Disease

Miasma and Night Air

Doors and windows of homes and factories were sealed shut at sunset.

A poisonous vapor or mist that is filled with particles from decomposed matter (miasmata) that could cause illnesses and is identifiable by its nasty, foul smell

Theory of used to explain thespread of disease in London and Paris

The Microscopic Revolution

The Microscope

“people had a dreadfulapprehension of breedingbullfrogs inwardly.”

1880: Pasteur published book on germ theory

Anton van Leeuwenhoek: first microbiologist

Revolutionized knowledge of the causes of disease

Malariatyphoid tuberculosis diphtheria cholera tetanus

1880 - 1885

Organisms Discovered

Theodor Escherich 1886

1/3 weight of average uninfected human waste

Greatest impacton municipal water

systems and water treatment.

E. coli

Discovery of coliform bacteria

Most forms of e. coli are harmless

Total Coliforms (including fecal coliform

and E. Coli)

Not necessarily a health threat in itself; it is used to indicate whether other potentially harmful bacteria may be present

Coliforms are naturally present in the environment; fecal coliforms only come from human and animal fecal waste.

Biological pollution

Drinking Water MCL = no more than 5.0% total samples coliform-positive in a month

Standards based on presence or absence

Freshwater Standard: ~200 units/100 mL

Initiation of Water TreatmentBiological Pollutants and Water Quality

Initial Forms of Water Treatment

Removal of Suspended Solids

Flocculation Sand filtration

Flocculation – bringing together of high numbersof small particles to create larger particles whichsettle out of water quickly.

First water treatment: Flocculation

2000 B.C.

Suspended Organic and inorganic particles

Higher turbidity levels are often associated with higher levels of viruses, parasites and bacteria.

Turbidity

Suspended particles often function as a habitat for microorganisms

Turbidity is caused by the suspensionof very small particles in water.

Settling Velocity proportional to diameter squared

Small particles settle slowlyLarge particles settle quickly

Many of the particles that cause turbiditycarry a negative electrical charge.

Flocculation

- charge

- charge

- charge

Al3+

Al3+Al3+

Small organic andInorganic particles

Settling rate of particles is proportional to the square of the diameter

Small particles settle slowly, large particle settle quickly from water

Small, Suspended Particles Flocculated particlesContaminants, pathogens

Clear Water

Al3+

Flocculation

Filtration

solidsWaterparticles

Clearer Water

Fast Slow

0.4 m/hour 21 m/hour

Physical straining

Particles larger than the pore

spaces between the sand grains are trapped

Particles smaller than the spaces between sand grains are trapped

Antagonistic bacteria destroyPathogenic bacteria

Physical/ biological straining

Chlorination

• gaseous chlorine• sodium hypochlorite• calcium hypochlorite

Common chemical bleaches include household "chlorine bleach", a solution of approximately 3-6% sodium hypochlorite (NaClO)

Chlorination

A 12% solution is widely used in waterworks for the chlorination of water and a 15% solution is more commonly used for disinfection of waste water in treatment plants.

High-test hypochlorite (HTH) is sold for chlorination of swimming pools and contains approximately 30% calcium hypochlorite.

hypochlorous acid (HOCl) and hypochlorite ion (OCl-).

Destroys cellenzymes

Chlorine Disinfection

hypochlorous acid (HOCl)is responsible for the disinfecting power.

Low pH favors high levelsof HOCl over OCl-

Penetrates bacterial cell

Bacterial death is rapid

NaOCl = Na+ + OCl-

Low pH High pH

The intersection of Cambridge and Broad Street, up to 500 deaths from

Cholera occurred within 10 days

The first known uses of chlorine for water disinfection was by John Snowin 1854, when he attempted to disinfect the Broad Street Pump water supply

Applied to municipal water systems in 1909

Cholera and Chlorine

public well had been dug only three feet from an old cesspit

Chlorination

Chlorine is currently employed by over 98 percent of all U.S. water utilities that disinfect drinking water

Effectiveness of Chlorination: Typhoid Yardstick

De

ath

s p

er

100

,00

0

1860 1910 1935

Today: < 40 per 200 million people

bacterium Salmonella typhi

174 per 100,000 persons died of Typhoid in 1891