Environment and Pollution in Colonial India: Sewerage Technologies along the Sacred Ganges (Routledge Studies in South Asian History) by Janine Wilhelm

Author:Janine Wilhelm [Wilhelm, Janine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781317238850
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2016-04-27T18:30:00+00:00

Initially, the Lucknow experimental station at Maulviganj was comprised of six liquefying tanks and a number of filters. When these furnished unsatisfactory results, the whole arrangement was extended through the addition of a septic tank and three extra sets of contact beds. Before long, the smell emanating from the septic tank gave rise to complaints from the Riful-i-Am Club and others residents near the site, which made it necessary to close the liquefying tanks down and to turn them into mere detritus tanks.42,43 Moreover, effluents steadily deteriorated and the contact bed got clogged by the mineral solids contained in the sullage, preventing nitrification and causing the filters to act purely mechanically. Difficulties also arose from the fact that the Lucknow station possessed no chemical analyst of its own. Effluent samples had to be sent all the way to the government laboratory in Agra, which meant that they were examined only one week after they had actually been collected. Therefore the accuracy of the results was seriously doubted.44 In 1907, the Government of India on behalf of the United Provinces requested sanction for the employment of a ‘sewage works chemist or analyst’ from Britain from the Secretary of State Lord Morley. For the successful working of the experiments, it was pointed out, the presence of a chemical cum bacteriological examiner on the spot was essential. In order to develop systematic knowledge and reach to a standardised process, it was indispensable to take hourly samples for daily analyses, especially in India, where bacterial processes were vitally influenced by alterations in temperature, humidity and evaporation. The ‘sewage chemist’ moreover was to train others in this work, creating a first set of skilled staff that could then be employed by other municipalities with drainage or sewerage works to oversee their treatment devices. The person to be employed was desired to be of ‘similar qualifications to the chemists who are engaged on nearly all the larger sewage purification works at home, and who make daily examinations of the processes employed’, and to have a minimum of three years of experience.45 However, sanction was denied. In his response, the Secretary of State pointed out that the proposed scheme for training subordinate sewage chemists had never been approved of. As per the main sewage chemist, Morley was convinced that a suitable candidate could be found in India itself, since no high degree of expert knowledge was required.46 Thus, a sewage chemist was never hired for Lucknow, and samples continued to be sent to Agra for examination.47 In 1909, after several additional trials with different machinery, the failure of the experimental biological treatment plant was acknowledged, and the disposal of the sullage on land was held out to be Lucknow’s only feasible alternative.48 Consequently, the municipality built two intercepting sewers after all, one of them discharging the sullage on waste land, the other on cultivated lands.49

Biological sewage treatment, received with great enthusiasm in the United Provinces at the turn of the twentieth century as a cheap alternative to

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