Montour American. (Danville, Pa.) 1866-1920, 1907-11-28
READING SEWAGE
FILTER PLANT

A sewage filtration plant, the kind
that the State has in view to prevent
river pollution at this place and at
the hospital for the insane has been
installed at Reading and is ready to
go into commission. 1t Is expected to
be a model for all other towns whose
sewage is emptied into rivers or other
streams.
| The device, which is of IA type known
as "sprinkling filter" is the first to
be placed in actual service in this
country. The method of publication
adopted consists in general of the fol-
lowing process: After preliminary
screening which is made unusually
thorough to remove the fibrous materi
al contributed to the sewage by GER
tain local manufactures, the sewage is
pumped to septic tank on the other
side of the Schuylkill, $500 feet away,
and which is at sufficient elevation to
permit all further flow to and through
the succeeding elements of the plant
to the sprinkling filters. which are
located on Fritz's Island, lying in the
river about $500 feet away From the
sprinkling filter the effluent passes to
the-sedimentation basin and from this
is discharged pure and sparkling, into
the river.
The majority of disposal plants, and
probably all which pump the sewage,
screen the larger floating matter there
from, as a preliminary to further
treatment Most of these, however, re-
move only such matter as would be
caught by screen of from one-half
to one-inch mesh. In the Reading
plant rotary screen. called by the
contractor a segregator," is used.
This consists of a cylindrical screen
open at both ends. which continually
revolves around horizontal axis at
the rate of three revolutions minute.
The sewage passes through the open
ings of the screen and drops into a
we'll below, the Suspended matter be-
ing retained on the inside Of the
screen.
The forty-inch mesh is expected to
catch very large part of the suspend
ed impurities in the sewage and would
undoubtedly clog up very rapidly if
no provision were made for keeping
it clean To effect this, a three-inch
horizontal pipe is suspended on each
side of the screen, outside of and
few inches from the same, parallel to
its axis and about 40 degrees above the
horizontal plane above it.
Each of these pipes is pierced at five
points space at ten-inch intervals,
from which jets of water, steam or
air are to be driven against the out
side surface of the screen and normal
to it; the pipes being arranged to
move longitudinally back and forth a
distance of twelve inches, thus caus-
ing the jets to strike every part of the
screen, The sewage is expected to flow
through the meshes of the screen and
at the same time force toward the fur
ther end the Suspended matter, which
is being constantly loosened by the
cleaning jets.
This suspended matter, as it is fore
| ed from the further end, will drop in
to bucket conveyor, which will carry
it to a spiral conyeyor, which in turn
will deposit it in bags. These bags
are to be placed into a centrifugal
wringer making 800 revolutions
minute, by which large part of the
liquid will be removed from the solid
matter. The matter will be disposed
of for fertilizer or used for fuel
The sewage. after this screening,
will be pumped to the septic tank
through force main.