Sewage disposal 1870-1947 / [City of Bradford Sewage Committee].

  • Bradford (West Yorkshire, England). Metropolitan District Council. Sewage Committee.
Date:
1947
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Sewage disposal 1870-1947 / [City of Bradford Sewage Committee]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    times. In addition, of course, vast quantities of soap and alkali were used in its removal from the wool. One more difficulty arose from the presence in Bradford of many dyeworks, which also poured their effluents into the sewers, so that the sewage at one time ran acid, and at another strongly alkaline. After many experiments the method adopted was to precipitate the solids with lime and the effluent then underwent a final purification by filtration through coke-breeze. The works were so operated for many years. Only a portion of the sewage could be dealt with, however, and meanwhile the town was growing rapidly. Subsequently the use of lime as a precipitant of the sewage was abandoned, and ferric sulphate was used. But this proving very ex- pensive, sulphuric acid was substituted in January 1901 and treatment by this chemical has been continued to the present time. After precipi- tation difficulties were conquered, it became necessary to dispose of the sludge, and experiments proved that this could be effected by means of filter presses. Through this treatment the grease is extracted and is marketable, as is also the dried sludge-cake. Since 1903 this process has been gradually expanded. The condition of the Aire improved but slowly under the early experiments, and the West Riding of Yorkshire Rivers Board, which was formed in 1893, almost immediately brought pressure to bear on the Bradford Corporation to improve the effluent discharged from their works. The Corporation accordingly decided in 1894 to extend the Frizinghall works, and the consent of the Local Government Board was given to the scheme with the express intimation that it was accepted “very reluctantly,” the Board evidently feeling that though it was the best devisable, any scheme of treatment in so limited an area, some 38 acres, as was at the utmost available at Frizinghall, was necessarily far from satisfactory. Beck and road improvements were carried out, but before the new purification works at Frizinghall were commenced the scheme for the extension of the boundaries of the borough arose. In the course of the Local Government Board’s Inquiry into that proposal the sewage disposal of Bradford was a good deal criticized, and eventually, when the extension was sanctioned, there. was inserted, in the Extension Order of 1899, a stipulation that Bradford should proceed with a proper sewage disposal scheme within twelve months. The Esholt Scheme Conceived Meanwhile the feeling was growing that it was necessary to remove the works to the main valley of the Aire, and the only site there available seemed to be at Esholt on the estate of the successors of the gentleman whose legal proceedings first emphasized the gravity of the problem. Before they proceeded with an undertaking of such magnitude as the acquisition of the Esholt Estate, two alternative policies were considered Six
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