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Sewers

Sewers are underground systems of pipes that use water to carry stormwater, domestic waste, and industrial waste for disposal into waterways. The combination of water and waste, commonly referred to as “sewage,” moves through the pipeline by gravity or under pressure (in which case, the flow is dependent on a pump station). Since people decided to use water-carriage systems for waste disposal, governments have been trying to deal with the unexpected and negative impacts of the technology with regulatory policy.

The mouth of the Cloaca Maxima, the earliest sewer in Rome. Built in the 6th century b.c.e., it was designed to carry stormwater and effluent to the River Tiber. The flush toilet developed later was the luxury of the privileged few in the city.

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Early History

The orthodox view is that sewers were invented by the Romans with the construction of the Cloaca Maxima, which discharged into the Tiber River. Rome's first sewers were built in the 6th century b.c.e. They were originally open channels, constructed by lining existing streambeds with stone. The channels were enclosed beginning in the 3rd century b.c.e. The sewers’ primary function was to carry off stormwater, though like in all cities with stormwater drains, they were eventually used to carry human and other waste products to receiving waters.

The flush toilet greatly facilitated the introduction of human excreta into sewers. This pivotal technology was known to the privileged at the height of the Roman era and since the 18th century in parts of Europe. By the middle of the 19th century, diseases like cholera and typhoid—carried to wells, spigots, and waterways by feces-laden wastewater—gave rise to a demand for the construction of sewers that would carry sewage not only out of and away from the home but also away from the city.

English sanitarian Edwin Chadwick, in his 1842 report on the sanitary conditions of England's poor, advocated sewers as a way to improve the health of the urban poor. At the time, it was thought that poisonous vapors from putrefying materials caused disease. This was called the miasma theory of disease (the term miasma means “bad air”).

Early Sewers

The first sewers were constructed in England and the United States in 1850, trailing the construction of waterworks by 5–50 years in most cities. The effort to move human and industrial wastes away from city centers was driven by access to piped water in urban areas and also by the work of sanitarians like Chadwick. This entailed the evolution of the ditch-type stormwater sewer into the closedpipe water-carriage system of sewerage. The wastewater was the medium of transportation, so a large and regular supply of water was a requirement to keep the wastes moving in the pipes.

In the United States, Philadelphia built the first waterworks in 1802; by 1860, the nation's 16 largest cities had waterworks. By 1880, the number increased to 598. After sewers were built on the heels of waterworks, conveniently carrying wastes with water, urban populations were regularly drinking effluent from sewers. With polluted water everywhere, waterborne epidemics like typhus and cholera ferociously swept through metropolitan areas such as Chicago, New York, and Pittsburgh, taking thousands of lives and giving new authority to sanitary reformers and, paradoxically, life to sewers.

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