CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE DISPOSAL OF SEWAGE.

The water-carriage system of sewage is, as the late Dr. Parkes put it, “the cleanest, the readiest, the quickest, and in many cases the most inexpensive method.” But when the sewage is conveyed to the outfall of the sewer, its ultimate disposal is still one of the most difficult problems of the present day. Various plans have been adopted, of which the following are the chief:—

1. Discharge into running water.

2. Discharge into the sea.

3. Separation of solid and liquid parts {By settlement. {By precipitation.

4. Filtration through various artificial media or through land.

5. Irrigation.

6. Bacterial methods.

=Discharge at once into running water= was formerly the favourite plan, as it was certainly the most convenient. The sewage was turned into the nearest water-course, regardless of the facts that this might have to supply the drinking water of people at a lower point, that the mouth of the river tended to become obstructed by sewage mud, that valuable stocks of fish were destroyed, and that the river which had practically become a sewer was a source of annoyance and danger to all on it or near it. The enforcement of the Rivers Pollution Prevention Act of 1876 has not been followed by as great improvement as is desirable.

The sewage entering rivers undergoes considerable purification by subsidence, by oxidation, by the influence of water plants, and still more by the active work of microbes, causing nitrification of nitrogenous matter. The vitality of the typhoid bacillus and of the cholera vibrio when discharged by sewage into a large river is probably not very protracted; but water from such a river would form a very dangerous source of domestic supply.

=Discharge into the Sea= is resorted to in seaboard towns. The outfall must be carried well below the lowest low-water mark, and to such a point that the incoming tide or wind will not bring the sewage back upon the shore, or on the shore of neighbouring places.

=Discharge into an Estuary= is only justifiable when the flow of the river is rapid, when the volume of water passing out to sea is very greatly in excess of the volume of sewage, and when there is no possibility of contaminating oyster-layings or beds of mussels or other molluscs.

Objection has been taken to the above method on the ground of waste of manure; but modern sewage is so dilute that its profitable utilization on land still remains a dream.

For a single house or small village, the sewage may be stored in =a tank, with an overflow-pipe=, out of which the liquid parts escape, and are systematically used to irrigate land, while the solid parts are removed at intervals.

A similar subsidence system has been employed on a larger scale, the liquid parts being irrigated over land, while the solid parts are mixed with street sweepings, and sold as manure.

If the liquid parts in any such system as this are turned into a stream, they are as dangerous as the entire sewage, and the legal prohibition to discharging sewage into streams applies equally to them.

The =precipitation of the solid parts= of the sewage is rendered much more perfect by the use of =chemical agents=, and at the same time the dissolved matters are to some extent removed.

Milk of lime has been employed, 6 to 12 grains of quicklime being used for each gallon of sewage. Secondary decomposition is apt to occur in the effluent, causing an offensive smell. Salts of alumina, iron salts, and various combinations of these have also been employed, but with imperfect results.

The London sewage for some years has been treated by adding 2·5 grains of sulphate of iron and 3·7 grains of lime to every gallon of sewage; a reduction of 15 to 20 per cent. in the amount of dissolved organic matter being secured. Polarite or magnetic spongy carbon is used as a filter in certain places, the solid and some of the dissolved sewage being first precipitated by magnetic ferrous carbon (ferrozone). The Amines process consists in applying a mixture of herring brine and lime to the sewage. The sewage is stated to be sterilized by this means. Electrolysis has also been applied to the purification of sewage, as in the Hermite process. In this process sea-water is electrolysed, oxygen-yielding compounds and chlorine being produced.

With regard to all the chemical processes hitherto introduced, the following general statement appears to hold good: they are expensive and not thoroughly efficient.

=Sewage sludge= is deposited in the tanks in chemical processes and needs separate disposal. At Birmingham the amount of sludge produced daily from the sewage of a thousand persons is nearly a ton. This sludge has been run into rough filter beds and left to dry or carted away for manure, but in its crude state its manurial value is very slight. At Ealing it is mixed with house-refuse and burnt in a destructor. The more modern method is to pass it through a filter-press, thus compressing it into solid cakes which can be sold for manure.

=Filtration= of the sewage matter has been accomplished in various ways.

_Intermittent downward filtration_ through a considerable depth of soil was stated by the Rivers Pollution Commission to be attended with good results. A porous soil is chosen, and the purified water is received in drains under it. A large part of the organic matter is removed by bacterial agency. Frankland’s experiments shewed that upward filtration through the same media did not purify.

_Filtration through artificial media_ has not been successful with crude sewage. Precipitation by ferrozone followed by filtration through polarite is said to be satisfactory.

=Broad Irrigation= purifies the sewage efficiently under favourable conditions, the possible exceptions being during rainstorms and during frosty weather. The effluent into the river cannot, however, be regarded as certainly innocuous, though it is better than the effluent from most other processes. Sewage farms are not a commercial success. In such a farm liquid sewage is allowed to flow at intervals over the land, different fields being irrigated in rotation. Immense crops of grass are obtained, but the grass is coarse and rank.

The soil to be irrigated should have a gentle slope, and the effluent be conveyed by subsoil drains about 5 or 6 feet deep into the nearest water-course. The sewage should be delivered in as fresh condition as possible, and should be freed from its coarser portions by settlement or precipitation. The amount of land required is about 1 acre for the sewage of 100 persons. The irrigation must be on the intermittent plan, in order that the soil may undergo aeration; as it is only in this way that the best purifying results can be obtained. The sewage farm should be well drained by deep-laid agricultural drains. The chief purification of the sewage occurs in the superficial layers of the soil. Nitrification ceases at a depth of about 18 inches. The great point, therefore, is to keep the superficial soil in good condition. A similar nitrification occurs in earth-closets (page 195). No nuisance need arise in connection with a sewage-farm, and the supposition that milk and other products from such a farm are less wholesome than the same products from other farms has proved to be unbased.

=Bacterial Methods of Treating Sewage.=—Chemical precipitation of sewage is likely to be completely superseded by _biological or bacterial_ methods of sewage disposal. When sewage is treated by filtering through land or by broad irrigation the process is bacterial, bacteria or microbes in the soil converting injurious organic matter into innocuous mineral products. The typical process is one of _nitrification_. The novelty of recent methods is in utilising bacteria for the whole process of purification, and not only for its final stages. The object is, in fact, not as in chemical processes to arrest, but by confining the sewage in tanks to aid and hasten decomposition or putrefaction. Two kinds of microbes serve in this process; those living in air, known as _aerobic_, and those living in other gases than air, called _anaerobic_.

Three biological methods of preliminary treatment of sewage are employed. (1) Mr. Scott Moncrieff passes the sewage slowly upwards through a filter 14 inches thick, consisting of successive layers of flint, coke, and gravel. This is called a “_cultivation tank_.” The solid sewage becomes liquefied in passing through this medium, the microbes in the filter dissolving the sewage. (2) In the “_septic tank method_,” introduced by Mr. Cameron at Exeter, a tank is employed which is covered in to exclude light, and to a large extent air. The tank is large enough to hold 24 hours’ flow of sewage. The microbes in the sewage under these conditions multiply rapidly, attack, and liquefy the sewage. As in the first process little or no sludge is left. The ultimate products of the decomposition are water, ammonia, and carbonic acid, and other gases. The effluent from the tank is comparatively clear and inoffensive. (3) _Aerobic biological filters_ are employed, as in Mr. Dibdin’s installation at Sutton, where the filtering material is coke. The sewage slowly passing through the filtering medium becomes liquefied, the solid matter being peptonised. This action is in part at least due to anaerobic microbes. The filtering beds are used intermittently to allow of aeration, and the liquefaction of solid organic particles entangled in the filter probably chiefly occurs at this stage. It is desirable to have small subsidence tanks, for the removal of large suspended matters and of road debris, etc., before the sewage is spread over the filtering beds. The material used in the filter varies. Most commonly coke-breeze has been employed, but coal slack and other material have also been utilised.

After the preliminary treatment above described, the sewage requires to be passed over finer filtering beds, in which aerobic microbes complete the purification by changing the dissolved organic matter into inert inorganic compounds, by the process known as nitrification. The two processes run into one another, to some extent going on together.

Hitherto the Local Government Board have required filtration of sewage through land before any sewage effluent is allowed to pass into a stream. In view of the successful results now obtainable by bacterial processes this requirement will be occasionally waived. It is unsafe to assume, however, that the clear effluent obtained is free from all disease-producing microbes; and drinking water should not be obtained from even a very large river below the point of discharge of such an effluent, without the most efficient sand filtration.