The history of water supplies is an interesting start to understanding the whole picture of the water issues we face today. Populations followed water supplies as exploration and expansion happened. But with the advent of water re-distribution systems, towns started popping up in places people never lived before. Those towns have become cities. Agriculture followed the same pattern as populations. Given that only about .008% of the world's water supplies are readily available andpotable, we'll all be in trouble if we don't take more care with our water supplies. Fresh water is necessary for life, and that is threatened by water pollution and water quality in general.
The history of water supplies in the United States begins with surface water -- lakes, ponds, rivers, and streams. Pioneers are opportunistic. Early exploration and settlement of the U. S. pretty much followed the natural occurrences of convenient water supplies. Shallow wells were dug only under circumstances that compelled settlement at sites where surface water was unavailable, ie, rich mineral deposits or unclaimed (presumably less desirable) farm and ranch land.
Treatment of water supplies was non-existent before the second half of the nineteenth century. Gradually, a number of health problems were linked to consumption of contaminated drinking water. Sometimes contamination was traced to the source of water supplies, and sometimes contamination occurred in the water supplies' distribution systems.
A pond or lake might contain natural deposits of arsenic, or heavy metals in pipeline systems might contaminate water that started out pure at its source. Parasites might enter a river from dung deposited when animals came to drink, or from the dung of domestic cattle drinking from irrigation ditches created by man. Toxic algae might flourish in bodies of water or in the pipes, ditches, or aqueducts that transported water. Early water quality control focused on the design of distribution systems and the materials used in their construction. But even the best distribution systems left water unimproved from its source.
Filtration was the first water treatment technique widely used in the history of water supplies. Before the settlement of America, slow sand filtration was well established in England and Scotland, and to a lesser extent in continental Europe. But filtration was slow to catch on in the U. S. Richmond, Virginia, launched a bold but unsuccessful upward flow backwash filtration system in 1832.
Not until 1855 did another U. S. municipality attempt a water supply filtration system, a small charcoal, sand, and gravel strainer at Elizabeth, New Jersey. As late as 1860, there were only 136 community waterworks in the U. S. Many of these communal water supplies drew upon artesian springs and other low-turbidity sources relatively free of pollutants. Everywhere else, people relied upon untreated water supplies from surface water bodies and shallow wells.
The Civil War put a damper on construction of waterworks. But waterworks construction proceeded rapidly when the war ended, spurred by the optimistic economic vigor of the Reconstruction era. Still, water treatment remained utterly inadequate for large portions of the population for decades to come. The U. S. made three notable contributions to the history of water supplies:
- "Rapid filter" technology that relies on pumps and other machinery to force water through filters was invented in the 1880s and 1890s, greatly increasing treated water supplies over filtration systems that rely upon gravity and slow seepage through passive filtration media.
- Improved slow sand filtration methods, developed at the Lawrence Experiment Station of the Massachusetts State Board of Health.
- Chlorination was introduced early in the twentieth century, first as a bactericidal adjunct to rapid filtration, and then in conjunction with sand filtration.
