Privatization of Water Services in the United States An Assessment of Issues and Experience (2002) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
2. History of U.S. Water and Wastewater Systems
2. History of U.S. Water and Wastewater Systems
Pages 29-40
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 29... ...
Ancient societies in Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, Pakistan, Crete, and Greece all sought to provide safe drinking water and safe means of human waste disposal. Water supply and wastewater collection reached a high point in the Roman Empire.
|
From page 30... ...
In the late 1800s, new water treatment methods, such as slow sand filtration and rapid filtration with chemical coagulation, had been developed and were being used in public water supplies (AWWA, 1951, 1981a,
|
From page 32... ...
However, it was not until 1912 that the first water regulations were promulgated under this legislation (AWWA, 1999~. These early federal regulations prohibited the use of common water cups on interstate common carriers.
|
From page 33... ...
Water supplies in cities that provided water for interstate carriers needed to be approved by the U.S. Public Health Service.
|
From page 34... ...
In her 1962 book, Silent Spring, Rachel Carson exuressed concerns regarding environmental quality, including the quality of drinking water, caused by synthetic chemicals (Carson, 1962~. These new chemicals were dissolved in minute quantities in water and could not be detected by the analytical techniques of the day (Dougherty et al., 1966~.
|
From page 35... ...
Environmental Protection Agency is responsible for establishing drinking water standards under the Safe Drinking Water Act. PUBLICLY OWNED WASTEWATER TREATMENT WORKS The original approach to disposing of wastewater from urban homes in the United States was via cesspools or septic tanks with underground tile drains for wastewater disposal through percolation into the ground.
|
From page 36... ...
This is characterized as "advanced treatment." Although the federal government has no regulations for nonpotable reuse, many states do, and one of the requirements generally applicable is provision of "tertiary treatment," which adds a sand filtration process (similar to that used in drinking water plants) following secondary treatment.
|
From page 37... ...
Requirements under the Safe Drinking Water Act and the Clean Water Act are sure to become more restrictive over time, given the continual emergence of contaminants that pose yet unknown public health risks and given that there will be new contaminants that have not yet been invented. Prevention and detection of pollution and the treatment of water at all stages of the hydrologic cycle will become more complex and more costly.
|
From page 38... ...
Public water supplies presently have limited state and federal grant programs. However, there have been recent pressures to request federal assistance to help replace needed infrastructure.
|
From page 40... ...
40 PRIVATIZATION OF WATER SERVICES IN THE UNITED STATES countries such as Australia, Macao, and the Philippines, but there have been no comprehensive evaluations of the net benefits of these decisions. Independent evaluations of the successes, failures, benefits, and problems of these global efforts would be useful.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.