The Charles River Basin was one of the pioneering environmental engineering projects in America. The project transformed 675 acres of unhealthy and unsightly salt marshes and tidal flats were into an environmental centerpiece for the Boston area by 1910. This was one of the first public projects to radically improve the environment and has served as a model for similar projects around the nation.
Water Supply & Control
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Image Credit: Courtesy Wikipedia/Daderot (CC BY-SA 3.0)Image Caption: Charles River Basin ProjectEra_date_from: 1910
1981
Frank Zybach, a tenant farmer and inventor living near Strasburg, Colorado, received a patent for a "Self-Propelled Sprinkling Irrigating Apparatus" on July 22, 1952.
The device used mobile towers to continuously move a pipeline in a circle around a pivot. Water was supplied through the pivot and distributed by sprinklers on the pipeline. Zybach formed a partnership with A.E. Trowbridge, an entrepreneur-businessman, in 1953 to manufacture center pivots in Columbus, Nebraska.
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Image Credit: U.S. Department of Agriculture photoImage Caption: The Center Pivot Irrigator transformed agricultural production throughout the world.Era_date_from: 1952
1993
Developed by the Hohokam, a prehistoric group of Native Americans, the canal system in the Salt River Valley serviced more than 100,000 acres of mostly arid desert country in what is now southern Arizona. The prehistoric Hohokam constructed one of the largest and most sophisticated irrigation networks ever created using pre-industrial technology.
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Image Credit: Courtesy Flickr/Dave Hogg (CC BY 2.0)Image Caption: The Hohokam irrigation system included some 700 miles of canals.Era_date_from: 600
1992
Originally known as the Coolgardie Goldfields Water Supply Scheme, the Goldfields Water Supply, Western Australia, has exceptional and unique cultural significance for Australia. Western Australia's first Premier, the dynamic and visionary Sir John Forrest, recognized the need for this extraordinary project to support the young and burgeoning gold mining industry in the dry interior of the state. In 1896 he directed C Y O'Connor, the colony's first Engineer-in-Chief, to find a permanent solution to the water supply problem in the area, which lacked any permanent surface water supplies and
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Image Credit: Courtesy Flickr/Fernando de Sousa (CC BY-SA 2.0)Image Caption: Goldfields Water SupplyEra_date_from: 1903
2008
Galveston Island is a barrier island located two miles off the Texas coast. The island is about 3 miles wide at its widest and about 28 miles long. The Galveston Seawall extends over 10 miles along Galveston's oceanfront, protecting life and property against hurricanes and tropical storms.
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Image Credit: Courtesy Flickr/Ed Schipul (CC BY-SA 2.0)Image Caption: Galveston Seawall and Grade RaisingEra_date_from: 1911
2001
The Delaware Aqueduct provided an important transportation link between the Pennsylvania's coalmines and New York's booming industrial marketplace. It is the earliest surviving work of John A. Roebling, who designed the Brooklyn Bridge 30 years later. The cable anchorage system first used on this project was also used on the Brooklyn Bridge. The aqueduct is patterned after Roebling's design of the Pennsylvania Canal over the Allegheny River, and is the oldest metal strand cable suspension bridge still standing in the U.S.
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Image Credit: Courtesy Flickr/Doug Kerr (CC BY-SA 2.0)Image Caption: Delaware Aqueduct of the Delaware & Hudson CanalEra_date_from: 1848
1972
Inferior water and the lack of a sufficient water supply prompted public pressure to find a significant water source for the 360,000 of people living in New York City at the time. Studies determined that the Croton River, 40 miles north of the city, was the best available source. The original system served as a prototype for large-scale water supply projects across America.
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Image Credit: Courtesy Flickr/Otterman56 (CC BY 2.0)Image Caption: Croton Water Supply SystemEra_date_from: 1842
1975
Parker DamState: CACountry: USAWebsite: http://www.asce.org/Project/Colorado-River-Aqueduct/Creator: Weymouth, Frank E.
Stretching 242 miles from the Colorado River on the California-Arizona border to its final holding reservoir near Riverside, California, the Colorado River Aqueduct consists of more than 90 miles of tunnels, nearly 55 miles of cut-and-cover conduit, almost 30 miles of siphons, and five pumping stations. Supplying approximately 1.2 million acre-feet of water a year - more than a billion gallons a day - it helped make possible the phenomenal growth of Los Angeles, San Diego, and surrounding Southern California areas in the second half of the 20th century.
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Image Credit: Courtesy Flickr/Chuck Coker (CC BY-ND 2.0)Image Caption: Colorado River Aqueduct sinks into a tunnel underneath California State Highway 62Era_date_from: 1933
1994
Clarifying the turbid waters of the Mississippi River for use as drinking water was a formidable challenge. The Chain of Rocks Water Purification Plant provided the first application of a system of flocculation, sedimentation, and rapid sand filtration for water purification.
The system played a major role in reducing the impact of St. Louis' typhoid and cholera epidemic of 1903 that claimed 287 lives. Continued improvements to the plant reduced that number to 91 by 1914. It is estimated that 1,900 lives were likely saved between 1903 and 1915 due to the filtration system.
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Image Credit: Public Domain (Author's Choice)Image Caption: Chain of Rocks Water Purification PlantEra_date_from: 1903
1981
Cabin John Aqueduct, designed by Montgomery C. Meigs, conveys drinking water from Great Falls, Maryland to Washington, D.C. It was the longest stone masonry arch in the world for nearly 40 years. The segmental arch of the bridge has a span of 220 feet and a rise of only 57 feet. The main arch ring is built of cut and dressed granite. The secondary arch ring is radially-laid sandstone, of which the rest of the bridge is also constructed.
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Image Credit: Public Domain (Author's Choice)Image Caption: Cabin John AqueductEra_date_from: 1864
1972
Innovations
The city of Shreveport could not justify the cost of building a water distribution system solely for the purpose of supplying potable water. It was a series of disastrous fires in the 1880s that galvanized support for a pumping facility that would provide ample water for firefighting.
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This was America's first large-scale activated sludge plant. The successful operation of Milwaukee's sewage treatment plant led the way for many other American municipalities to adopt its methods of efficient environmental recycling.
Prior to 1925, sewage and industrial waste from the…
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Known as "the highest and lowest holing in history," the tunnel bored through the Rockies at an elevation of 9,200 feet, 2,800 feet below the surface. Eight hundred men worked around the clock for 3 1/2 years, moving 3 billion pounds of rock.
Three thousand feet under the Continental…
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After an initial difficulty in attracting customers (who were used to getting their water from public pumps and private wells and cisterns), Philadelphia's waterworks soon couldn't keep up with demand. John Davis and Frederick Graff designed a complete remodeling of the system in 1811 so that it…
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The first electric power generated by the Theodore Roosevelt Dam for commercial use was transmitted over a high-voltage line to Phoenix, where it was employed to operate the city's new streetcar system.
The Salt River Project, including the Theodore Roosevelt Dam, was the first major…
Read More"Eads had to succeed in the face of conventional wisdom which doomed him to disaster. Entrenched authorities not only completely dismissed his theories, but pointed to the indifferent European experiences with what he proposed."
- ASCE Landmark Nomination Proposal, 1982
A tiny village on the Rio Grande River in northern New Mexico became the training center for the first American hydrographers and provided the first stream-gauging operations of the U.S. Geological Survey. To plan any water system, it is necessary to know the amount of water flowing in the…
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Morris Canal was built to transport coal from the Lehigh Valley of Pennsylvania to industrial markets in Newark and New York. The total length of the canal was 106 miles. The canal climbed an astonishing 914 feet from Newark Bay to the summit at Lake Hopatcong, and then dropped 760 feet to the…
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San Antonio's River Walk, a catalyst for abundant commercial and tourism enterprise, is generally regarded by cities and urban planners throughout the world as a prototype for the development of urban riverfront sites. The River Walk's success, however, would not have been possible without a…
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Until 1900, the Chicago River drained into Lake Michigan, along with all the sewage from the city; and the Des Plaines River west of Chicago emptied into the Illinois River, which eventually flows to the Mississippi. Chicago residents drew their drinking water from polluted areas of the lake…
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