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Part 1
1880 to
1910
They are not just home
to epic albino alligators or the final resting place for thousands of
goldfish. Sewer systems are mucky mazes of pipes, flush valves and
diverters needed to keep a city – and today’s civilization – clean and
healthy. San Luis Obispo’s sewer system is a high-tech masterpiece,
above and beyond the labyrinth norm of M.C. Escher’s artwork. We don’t
usually think about the sewer system except to know that it’s there when
we need it.
But what if it wasn’t?
In 1888, there were no
sewers in San Luis Obispo. Minor, scanty trenches took human and other
waste from town to San Luis Obispo Creek, carrying muck and disease
through the waters where children played and dumping it into the ocean.
During that year, many
children became ill. According to an April 24 newspaper article, “Nearly
every family residing in the west portion of the city near the San Luis
Obispo Creek have two to three sick children to look after. The sewer
(the creek) is suspect, yet the majority of residents still oppose
construction of proper sewers.”
City leaders took a
first step in February 1890 by installing the first sewer pipe along
Chorro Street to the corner of Palm Street. The pipe, however, still
emptied into San Luis Obispo Creek. “There is no doubt but that the
creek is a natural sewer and should be used as such, but before being
used for that purpose, a little work should be done as not to allow the
filth of the upper end of the City to be deposited at the lower end,”
according to newspaper reports.
The problem of disease
continued in April 1890 when diphtheria ravaged the community. Open
trenches were still used to rid households of waste. All household
trenches connected to creeks or adjoining tributaries, providing “a fine
arrangement for breeding microbes, bacteria and kindred horrors which
eventually found entrance into houses through traps and sinks,” the
newspaper reported.
For that reason, rain
became a sacred event by flushing the creeks clean.
City leaders and
residents were torn; they knew the meager system needed improvement, but
couldn’t agree on a plan. Ideas weren’t scarce, however. One group of
citizens wanted to install three additional sewer lines through town
that terminated outside of city limits at a “dumping ground.” Engineers
had concluded one acre of land could handle waste from 1,000 people. San
Luis Obispo, however, proposed to play it safe and utilize five acres.
A second proposal by
Col. Waring of San Luis Obispo included detailed drawings showing a
system of mains and conduits that led to a “sewage farm” to be located
adjacent to the cemetery on South Higuera Street. This system would have
included a 15-inch main pipe to a 1,000-gallon tank. That tank would
then overflow into a 10,000-gallon tank, with the contents later used
for crop fertilization.
A prominent San
Francisco engineer proposed a third plan that would again use “dumping
grounds” south of the City, but the cost of building the system was too
expensive at the time.
By the end of the 1890,
Col. Waring’s wastewater collection system design was approved and used
to rid downtown San Luis Obispo of sewage. Again, all of the effluent
from his project still flowed into San Luis Obispo Creek.
But in September 1895, a
local resident sued the City, claiming the creek should only be used as
the city sewer during the wet season, June 1 to Dec. 1.
“The gravity of such a
condition of affairs must at once be apparent to every citizen,” the
newspaper reported. “To make provision for this conation of affairs … we
immediately began to seek for a means of disposing of the sewage of the
city.”
After contacting
landowner after landowner, the City purchased 10 acres at “the Schow
Place” along San Luis Obispo Creek for $2,000 to be used as space for a
sewer farm. It was used during the summer months when fertilized
disposal fields were dry enough to absorb the sewage. Suitable shallow
ditches that wound back and forth were dug long enough to receive all of
the water flowing from the sewer in three days. The existing Water
Reclamation Facility stands on the property today.
During the remainder of
the year, however, San Luis Obispo Creek was still the City’s sewer. And
the rain flushed it clean.
-Researched &
Compiled by Jim Autry
Part
2
Modern Water Laws
Have Roots in Ancient Times
The
relationship between contaminated drinking water and disease outbreaks
is well-known. Even Hippocrates advised citizens to boil and strain
water before drinking to prevent “hoarseness.”
It
wasn’t until the mid-1800s, when Louis Pasteur published his “germ
theory,” that cities worldwide began to recognize the relationship
between typhoid fever outbreaks and the use of untreated surface water
for drinking.
As
populations moved into cities in the late 1800s, fewer people were
getting their drinking water from private wells. Communities became more
dependent on drinking water delivered by community water systems from
rivers and lakes.
Closer to home, a large number of typhoid and other disease-related
outbreaks early in the 20th century pushed state and local
governments in the United States to establish public health programs to
protect water supplies. The first were water pollution control programs,
which focused on keeping surface water supplies safe by identifying and
limiting sources of contamination – mainly by keeping raw sewage out of
lakes and streams.
In
California, water laws changed significantly during the Gold Rush when
water was being diverted for mining claims. The effort to manage the
diversions unwittingly created the foundation for the legal principles
that currently prevail in California and the West. Today, California no
longer allocates water among competing users based on a first come first
served basis, as in the old mining days. Rather, the state allocates
water based on the public interest, as defined through California law.
Public interest takes into account the needs of those who depend upon
water supplies for sustenance, basically large cities and farming
communities that provide the backbone of California’s economy. It also
addresses the competing need to preserve water in its natural state for
various environmental uses, such as the preservation of fish and
wildlife. These laws were of course the product of historical
experience.
So
what does all of this have to do with San Luis Obispo? The
turn-of-the-century laws are the precursors to local wastewater law as
we know it today. These and subsequent laws have been the drivers behind
legislation mandating expensive, yet necessary improvements the City of
San Luis Obispo and other cities have made to wastewater treatment
processes for the protection of the environment and human health.
The
healthy environment we enjoy today in San Luis Obispo is partially due
to regulations rooted in the Old West. |
