TECHNOLOGY AND POLLUTION: CHICAGO'S WATER POLICY,1833--1930 (ILLINOIS).
详细信息
- 作者：O'CONNELL ; JAMES CHARLES.
- 学历：Doctor
- 年：1980
- 毕业院校：The University of Chicago
- CBH：T-27676
- Country：USA
- 语种：English
- FileSize：14049919
- Pages：220
文摘
During Americas first age of urbanization,from 1830-1860,water pollution first became a significant environmental threat. For a century,sewage was the predominant source of pollution； industrial wastes varied in volume from city to city. Ironically,many attempts to control pollution through centralized sewer systems aggravated the problem. This dissertation examines how Chicago managed its water pollution problems from its founding in 1833 until 1930,when the U.S. Supreme Court ordered it to provide complete sewage treatment. Water pollution was primarily an urban problem during these years,and Chicago was a leading innovator in managing it. By the 1920s,pollution was a regional problem,which even state governments found it difficult to control. Chicago was a preeminent city of the industrial age,and its pollution control solutions reflected that culture. The city opened a centralized municipal water supply system in 1854 to curtail reliance on wells,which were contaminated by haphazardly disposed sewage. Two years later,it started the first integrated sewer system in America. It was intended to safely remove the citys sewage,which lay in open cesspools,gutters,and privy vaults. According to the widely accepted filth theory of disease,the decomposing sewage produced toxic vapors which carried cholera,typhoid,and yellow fever. Pollution control projects were the outcome of the "sanitary revolution," which started in England and spread to America during the 1840s. Sanitarians believed that integrated water supply and sewer systems most effectively regulated water quality and prevented sanitary nuisances. Most cities rejected the earth closet,which cleanly containerized sewage in the home,because it was more difficult to regulate the decentralized usage and emptying of these closets. Unfortunately,Chicagos sewer system created a new pollution problem by concentrating sewage in the Chicago River.,which became noxious and was considered,according to the filth theory,a disease source. During flood periods,the river washed pollution into Lake Michigan,the citys water supply. City engineer E. S. Chesbrough tried to reverse the flow of the Chicago River by deepening the Illinois & Michigan Canal,into which the river flowed. Chesbrough also built a tunnel two miles out under Lake Michigan to avoid drawing the contaminated water near the shoreline. Technology was used to control pollution,as regulation was weak. When Chicagos health department was established in 1867,ordinances were formed to prohibit pollution,especially from industry； but it took ten years of litigation to impose effective control over the stockyards. Since health officials,with their ordinances,and civil engineers,with their technological programs,seldom coordinated their efforts pollution control policies were haphazard. In the 1890s,bacteriology made environmental control more effective. It transformed conceptions of pollution by providing accurate measures of its components. It also prompted the appearance of water purification engineers,who combined civil engineering and bacteriology. These new experts developed effective water purification and sewage treatment techniques and began to rationalize regulatory policies. While the bacteriological revolution was taking place,Chicago embarked upon a massive sewage control project predicated upon the obsolete filth theory of disease. In 1889,it started the Sanitary & Ship Canal to flush sewage away from Lake Michigan and the citys water supply once and for all. This did not work. In 1912,the city chlorinated drinking water and began sewage ten years later. Sewage pollution was under apparent control. By World War II,however,industrial pollution,especially toxic chemicals,proliferated and spawned a new environmental crisis which has yet to be resolved.