HISTORY
of the SAINT PAUL SEWERS
Sewer
being excavated under Cedar Street in Saint Paul
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Sanitation
legislation in the United States began in mid-19th century
cities where crowded conditions encouraged the spread of disease.
At this time, sickness was explained by the ancient miasmatic
theory of disease, which held that disease resulted from physiological
interactions of climate and personal constitution. Of particular
concern were malarial diseases caused by "bad airs"
or marsh miasm. Inhalation of miasmatic airs that derived
from damp areas was seen as a primary cause of disease. The
danger was most acute in mid-day when heat dissolved the poisons
and at night when the damp airs became cooled and condensed.
Sewer and land drainage projects had already been carried
out in England with positive health benefits that were directly
attributed to the drying out of the miasm-producing environment
and the removal of decomposing waste, and American sanitarians
sought to follow the English example.
In
urban areas swamps, stagnant waters- which were often a destination
for local garbage- sluggish drains and ditches, newly excavated
cellars and recently graded land were all seen as sources
of miasmatic airs and thus, insalubrity.
In
the 1880s, germ theory began to refute the miasma tradition
by explaining disease as a result of transmission of contagious
germs. Those public health officials who read of and believed
in germs began to focus their attention on slowing the spread
of disease by stopping contamination of food and water. Disease
became conceptually linked to microbes that thrived in poor
sanitary and unclean living conditions, and health reform
through public works became a social and political concern.
St.
Paul established a Board of Health in 1854, but the engineering
problems related to creating a sewer system were not seriously
addressed until the 1870s. By that time, make-shift unrecorded
ditches and drains ran throughout the downtown area and the
city was pitted with privy vaults and wells. In general, most
sewers constructed before the 1880s were inadequate: they
either did not properly flush or they were subject to cave-ins.
The
first St. Paul public health ordinance, passed in 1880, was
highly detailed with 26 sections of provisions in regard to
proper connections to public sewers. Especially in the building
boom of the 1880s, city officials realized that the construction
of a sanitary infrastructure could not keep pace with the
spread of both city development and disease. The early sanitary
infrastructure did not encourage use. Sewers remained limited
to a small area, running water was not available to flush
toilets, and poor connections froze in winter- so most residents
had resisted making connections. A plentiful water supply
was needed for toilet flushing, but though the waterworks
in St. Paul were constructed in 1869, by 1880, the 41,473
inhabitants of the city had only 1,850 hook-ups. In 1885 the
city began keeping records of all sewer building and hook-ups,
and a map was made showing the existing sewers, their type
of construction and their date of construction: pre or post
1885.
Because of the lag in the introduction of a working sanitation
infrastructure to the residential neighborhoods of St. Paul,
the city-- unable to require sewer hook-up and faced with
the spread of infectious diseases-- began passing ordinances
detailing the legal requirements of privy construction, and
the collection and disposal of night soil by scavengers three
years after the optimistically comprehensive ordinance regarding
sewer connections. Much of the content of the ordinances sought
to eliminate "nuisances": those features of the
urban landscape that were "emitting smells and odors
prejudicial to the public health."
The
first of these ordinances, passed in 1887, is a comprehensive
public health document "Prescribing Rules and Regulations
for the Health Department of the City of Saint Paul"
(SPCP 1887: 415- 422). This ordinance had sections regarding
physicians, the reporting of diseases, interment of bodies,
quarantine, vaccinations and "nuisances." The bulk
of the ordinance was written in regard to these nuisances,
privies, garbage piles, stables and such, that were seen as
agents in the spread of disease.
Sections
42 and 43 of the ordinance specifically treated the placement
and construction of privies, cesspools and other features
of the urban landscape that were "emitting smells and
odors prejudicial to the public health.". It is interesting
that odors in the air, and not polluted water, continued to
be perceived as a primary problem to be solved. The ordinance
required that "every water closet, privy vault or cesspool
shall be properly connected to a public sewer when practicable."
But it was apparently not practicable in most cases, as the
majority of the ordinance's sections relating to sanitation
described requirements for privy construction. New privy construction
was allowed in lots adjoining sewer lines as long as the privies
were water-tight or connected to a sewer. The 1887 health
ordinance stated that a privy would be declared a nuisance
if it was within 20' of a "street, dwelling, shop, or
well unless the same shall be furnished with a substantial
vault six feet deep and made water tight, so that the contents
cannot escape therefrom, and sufficiently secured and enclosed."
In addition, the contents of privies were required to be at
least two feet below ground surface, and those privies "emitting
smells or odor prejudicial to the public health" or not
conforming to the building provisions were declared nuisances
to be abated by the Department of Health.
Section
50 of Ordinance 809 states:
When not connected to any sewer, all water closets, privy
vaults or cesspools shall be walled up or cemented on sides
and bottom in such a way that they will be impervious to water.
Said bottom shall be at least six feet below the level and
they shall be provided with proper ventilating pipes and covers
subject to the approval of the Building Inspector; and no
water closet, privy vault or cesspool shall be so constructed
within twenty feet of any house residence or building without
a permit from the owner. . . or within twenty feet of the
line of any public street. . . water closets, privy vaults,
cesspools or private drains already built or constructed that
do not conform with [these] provisions. . . are hereby declared
a nuisance.
This ordinance also required privy vaults to be kept clean
by removing contents according to Health Department requirements
or with a license. In the search of sewer permits within the
Central Corridor project area, no permits for privy connections
to sewers were found, and it is unlikely that many would have
been made as it would have been difficult to flush them. No
provisions were made in this ordinance for the abandonment
of privy vaults.
The
1887 ordinance also briefly noted that scavengers employed
to remove "substances, which for any cause has become
offensive, or has to be removed, [shall] convey the same in
close, tight covered boxes, so as to prevent the scattering
or dropping therefrom any such substances while in motion,
or passing along any streets. . . or permit the emission of
smells therefrom" (Ordinance 809, sec 71). No mention
was made as to what was done with night soil in the ordinances,
but at one point the city adopted the New Orleans method of
sanitation, which involved the emptying of the contents of
privy vaults and cesspools into the Mississippi or converting
it to fertilizer in an outlying area.
As people were used to creating their own individual sanitation
systems as they saw fit and without the interference of the
city government, it is unclear whether this flurry of requirements
had much influence on the lives of most residents. Many did
resist making expensive hook-ups to a suspect system, and
sanitation ordinances were frequently broken. Non-conforming
privies were declared nuisances to be abated by the Department
of Health, but except in severe cases it is unlikely that
many were actually condemned.
Newspapers
did record problems as in this 1886 notice: "The attention
of the health officer has been called to a noisome nuisance
in the rear of the Syndicate block, but that official hasn't
discovered the foul hole yet.".
Gradually, dependable sewers and water mains were expanded
throughout the city and connector confidence increased. Permits
searched for the Central Corridor project indicate that most
homes were connected by 1910. But, regulations regarding the
removal of night soil continued into 1949, indicating that
privies may have stayed in active use well into the 20th century.
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