New Britain herald., 1919-10-13
CITY SEWAGE IS
 10 BE TESTED SOON
State to Stand One-hali the Ex-
 penSe Of Experiments

The City of New Britain is singu- larly fortunate in securing the CO., operation of the state in experiments to determine the best way for the disposal of the city sewage. The city will in the very near future, due to the increase in population here ard the conditions at the disposal plant, be obliged to either construct a new plant or reconstruct the pres ent one, but before this can be done eXperim ents similar to the ones about to be commenced here would have to be made This would ordinarily mean that the city would have to stand the entire expense, as New Ha- ven had to do in recent sewage ex- Ieriments there. New Britain, how
 ever, will receive the support of the state board of health and the state
 will share the expense. The city council has authorized an appropria- tion not to exceed $1O,OOO for the work and the v te will provide a similar amount from the $50,OOO which the legislature at it's last ses sion appropriated for the use of the state industrial waste commission ap- pointed by Governor Holcomb of which E. W. Christ of this city is a member.
 The work on the local experiment tation which will take place at the sewage disposal plant at Berlin will be begun as soon as possible, in fact, it is hoped to be started before the cold weather sets in. It will continue for a year at the end of which ime the state board of health will make a report to the city to- gether with it's recommendations
 The matter of experimenting as to the best way of disposing of the city's sewage was first brought up a year ago, when the state board of health took samples of the sewage from manholes adjacent to most of the factories of the city to find out the amount Of trade waste. if any, such as pickling liquors, acids, etc. The cost of this work was covered by money coming from an appropria ton by the legislature of 1917 for investi- gation into the pollution of inland waters of the state. During this same year tests were made by the state at the sewage disposal plant at Ber- lin to find out just what the different beds would do. A certain am ount of sewage was allowed to go on the beds and the time taken by the bed 1 to filter this amount was recorded. | Experim of this nature were car l ried on at seven or eight beds by the | state board of health
 This year the 1919 legislature ap- | propriated $5O.0O0 to be used by the ! state industrial waste commission ap- 1 pointed by the governor, to look into 1 the pollution of inland waters of the ! state. Experiments have been and 1 are being made in Waterbury, South 1 Manchester and several other places 1 in the state. A proposition was sub-
 mitted to the City of New Britain by i the state board of health which, 1 knowing the conditions of the dis posal plant here, offered to assist the city to better conditions. The propo- stion made was that the city appro- priate s10,OoO and that the state ! would use an equal amount from the $50,OOO appropriation mentioned ! above, for the purpose of doing the { necessary experimenting to find the 1 best and most feasible method of dis posing of the city's sewage. The ! common council authorized an ex-
 penditure not to exceed $1O,OOO. l As to the actual work of experi- i menting it is proposed to set up three
 different kinds of apparatus about a l pump house, the three different
 methods of experimentation being
 carried on at one time and to be con-
 tnued for a year. These are the &C., tivated sludge method, the Imhoff
 tank and sprinlllipg filture method, ! and the Miles acid process. One or 1 two other methods will also be tried | out. At the end of a years: time the ! state board of health will report and
 make recommendations to the city
 and the city will have a chance to go 1 ahead on the new or reconstructed i sewage disposal plant.
 l In determining the conditions of ! sewage for any city an individual
 eXperim ent is necessary for each par
 ticular city and what has proved sat
 isfactory in one place would not nec-
 essarily serve. here. The work will
 fill long standing need and with the | cooperation of the state the city will l find that the expense of ths very ur- | gent work will be cut in half.