Water treatment

through
the ages
F orty centuries ago, a medical philosopher set forth in Sanskrit
these precepts for treating water to be used for drinking.
It is good to keep water in copper vessels, to expose it to sunlight,
and to filter it through charcoal.
Impure water should be purified by being boiled over a fire . . .
or heated by the sun or by filtering it through sand and coarse gravel.

Today’s version: Disinfect by the oligodynamic action of met-

als, ultraviolet light, or heat; use activated carbon to adsorb
organic matter; remove suspended matter by filtration through a
bed of sand supported on a layer of gravel.
Is there nothing new under the sun?
About the same time, the Chinese discovered the purifying
effect of boiling water. No doubt some Number One Son said,
“Pop, if you mix some of the dried leaves from that bush with
the boiling water, it will take away the flat taste.” Thus, tea!
George E. Symons This article was originally published in 1981 in Centennial, a magazine produced by AWWA to commemorate its 100th anniversary.

2006 © American Water Works Association SYMONS | 98:3 • JOURNAL AWWA | MARCH 2006 87
 Water contributes much
Health to health
The earliest depictions of Egyptian water
purification devices date from the 15th and
13th centuries B.C. One tomb painting
shows a sedimentation apparatus made up of
large jars and siphoning hoses. Another
shows wick siphons.
The wick siphon also was known to the
Greek civilization, which maintained about
the same level of technology as the Egyptians
during the second millennium. Later, Hip-
pocrates, the Father of Medicine, observed
that “. . . qualities of water differ from one to
another in taste and other qualities . . .
[which] one should consider carefully . . . for
water contributes much to health.” He also
recommended that “rain waters be boiled
and strained through a cloth bag” (later
called a Hippocrates Sleeve), “otherwise
they could have a bad smell.”
In Hippocrates’ time, water procure-
ment was more important than water treat-
ment. Today, the ruins of graceful aque-
ducts pay mute praise to the skill of Roman
engineers. Toward the end of the second
century A.D., Rome’s water supply system
was delivering approximately 130 million
gallons daily, or roughly the volume of
modern-day Honolulu’s supply.
15th century B.C.
5th century B.C.
Sedimentation,
Egypt
88 MARCH 2006 | JOURNAL AWWA • 98:3 | SYMONS
In Rome, Greece, Carthage, and Egypt,
the end of the aqueduct-building period (343
B.C.-226 A.D.) saw the construction of stor-
age or settling cisterns at the point of aque-
duct discharge. The cisterns removed silt by
plain sedimentation. This treatment process
probably was the first ever used for public
water supply systems.
Various first century writings indicate that
single, double, and triple filtration were used
to produce pure water. Most likely, the treat-
ment was used for individual, not public
water supplies. It is doubtful that these
ancient cures for bad water played a real part
in the development of present-day water
treatment practice.
A dark age
From about 500 to 1600 A.D., water
treatment seems to have undergone a dark
age, although, especially in Europe, many
water sources were established and trans-
mission lines, wells, and cisterns were
constructed.
The great Elizabethan philosopher, Sir
Francis Bacon, chronicled a thousand scien-
tific experiments conducted during the pre-
ceding 1,000 years. Only 10 of them per-
tained to water treatment. Included were
percolation or filtration, boiling, distillation,
aeration, infiltration, and clarification.
1680
Hippocrates Sleeve, Van Leeuwenhoek invents
Greece microscope, discovers
microorganisms;
Holland
SPL/PHOTO RESEARCHERS, INC. MARY EVANS/PHOTO RESEARCHERS, INC.
2006 © American Water Works Association
Bacon concluded that “clarifying water
tends to improve health and increases the
pleasure of the eye.”
Although Bacon’s life work revolution-
ized scientific research, he still believed the
notion current in the time of the Caesars that
digging a pit on the seashore would produce
fresh water from the salty sea.
Toward the latter part of the 17th century,
two unrelated events occurred. They were to
play important parts in the future of water
treatment.
The first was a discovery by an unas-
suming Dutch inventor, Anton van
Leeuwenhoek. His experiments with optics
led to the invention of the microscope and
discovery of the tiny animals he called “ani-
macules.” The scientific community
accused van Leeuwenhoek of inaccuracy
and at best regarded his findings as inter-
esting but unimportant curiosities. It
remained for scientists of the 19th century
to make the connection between the ani-
macules, water, and health.
About the time van Leeuwenhoek first
saw microorganisms, an Italian physician
named Luc Antonio Porzio designed the first
multiple filter. He described the filter in his
book on mass sanitation in army camps
(1685). The process used plain sedimenta-
1685
1745
Porzio designs multiple Amy’s sponge filter patented,
filter, France
Italy
2006 © American Water Works Association
tion and straining followed by filtration
through sand. The filter contained two com-
partments (one downward flow, one
upward). Gravel separated the filter unit
from the top of the first compartment, which
contained a perforated-plate strainer.
The momentum of late 17th century
developments carried over into the 18th,
then stalled for almost 50 years. The most
important comments being made during this
time were simply restatements of ancient
cures, such as boiling. A Dr. Pluche stated
that “rivers fouled by the filth of cities could
be improved by sedimentation and exposure
to the sun.” This idea was not new; it just
meant that municipal pollution was recog-
nized, if not understood.
The first patent
Water treatment on a large scale began
with the granting of the first patent on a
water filter. The year was 1745 and the
inventor, a Frenchman named Joseph Amy.
Amy thought that sand and copper in house-
hold filters were bad for health. Instead, he
proposed sponges as the filtering medium in
lead or earthen containers. Amy promoted
his patents on the grounds they eliminated
the danger of copper poisoning, unaware
lead was a greater health menace. Despite
1750s
Dr. Francis Home
experiments with water
softening,
Scotland
SYMONS | 98:3 • JOURNAL AWWA | MARCH 2006 89
 the promotion efforts, people did not
respond enthusiastically, and Amy’s filter dis-
appeared from the market by 1760.
French domination of the water treatment
scene ended after the first half of the 18th
century. From 1750 through most of the
19th century, the Scots and English gained
ascendancy.
The Lancashire filter was the predecessor
of the slow sand filter, which, along with
chlorination, was probably the most impor-
tant invention in the history of water treat-
ment. Little is known of its origin except that
it was invented some time before 1790.
Of crude design, the Lancashire filter uti-
lized the principle of slow sand filtration.
Water was allowed to seep through layers of
sand and gravel, which entrapped the sedi-
ment. The sand was scraped off and cleaned
periodically and respread over the filter bed.
Like many subsequent filters, the Lancashire
was applied mostly in industrial works.
The English architect James Peacock
spent considerable time designing filters as
well as buildings. Peacock received the first
British patent on a water filter, 46 years after
the patent on Amy’s sponge filter. The Pea-
cock apparatus used upward-flow filtration
and incorporated a unique underdrain sys-
tem. Peacock theorized that gravity would
cause some sediment to be deposited in the
1780s
1804
Lancashire Filter utilizes slow Gibb installs filter serving municipal
sand principle, water supply,
England Scotland
90 MARCH 2006 | JOURNAL AWWA • 98:3 | SYMONS 2006 © American Water Works Association
lower filter chamber before actually reaching
the filter media. The remaining sediment
would be strained out by material particles of
decreasing size. Reverse-flow cleaning,
another feature of the Peacock filter, was one
of the basic elements of the later mechanical
filter. Peacock also expounded a third inno-
vation—the need for grading the straining
media from large stones at the bottom, to
small sand particles on the top layer. Today,
filters based on the upflow cleaning principle
are common.
In the mid-1700s Dr. Francis Home of
Scotland conducted the first series of experi-
ments on water softening. His findings led
him to suggest that water softening should be
applied to public water supplies.
Industrialists pioneer early filtration
As history passed into the “Age of
Progress,” as the 19th century has been
called, the level of sanitation in European
and American cities was scarcely better than
in medieval times. The Royal Commission
issued this description of a typical London
slum of the 1880s:
Drainage was wholly inadequate and so were the
sanitary facilities. As often as not, sewers were open
trenches running down the middle of the street. Pure
water was a luxury, and parks and trees in working-
class areas were nonexistent.

The connection between impure water
and disease had been strongly conjectured
for centuries. The irrefutable proof provided
by the yet unborn science of bacteriology was
needed to dislodge public indifference to
water treatment. Until that time, clarification
remained the central concern for public
water suppliers.
The first modern water filter plant was
installed in 1804 by John Gibb to supply his
bleachery and the townspeople at Paisley,
Scotland. It was a municipal water system at
last, although distribution was limited to the
water cart.
To clarify the muddy, industrial waste-
laden water of the Cart River, Gibb used a
roughing filter and sedimentation, followed
by double filtration. The Gibb filter was
designed in three concentric rings. In the
center was the clear water basin, ringed by a
sand filter, then a gravel filter enclosed by a
settling basin. This design resembles the
modern Dorrco-Aldrich-Perifilter.
The Paisley bleacher even devised a way to
pump water under pressure through pipelines
as part of a fire-extinguishing system.
Following the success of Gibb’s filter,
three related events advanced the methods of
water treatment in the British Isles.
In 1807 Glasgow became the first city to
have a municipal water treatment and distri-
1827
1830
Pamphlet circulated decrying
foul drinking water,
London, England
2006 © American Water Works Association
Filtration
bution system. Engineer Thomas Telford
devised the treatment process, which
included plain settling basins and filter
cells. The filters failed within a year or so
because of the high turbidity of the Clyde
River. New filter cells were designed, but
they also failed.
Disenchanted with sand filtration, the
Glasgow Water Works constructed the first
successful public water supply infiltration
gallery. The company tunneled under the
Clyde River to a peninsula of sand, where the
gallery was installed. James Watt, inventor of
the steam engine, furnished the idea for a
flexible-jointed pipe for use in the underwa-
ter crossing.
A practical-minded manufacturer finally
solved the problem of the Glasgow filters. In
the late 1820s Robert Thom, a cotton mill
operator, observed that water filters in the
Glasgow area were failing because of surface
clogging. He designed a self-cleaning filter
with a false bottom and a reverse-flow action
for washing.
Public outcry answered
During the same decade, Londoner James
Simpson appeared on the scene. His obser-
vations and experiments led to the invention
of the slow sand filter and a new age in the
history of water treatment.
1830s
Simpson’s slow sand Bleaching powder used
filter put into use, to purify foul-smelling water,
London, England England
SYMONS | 98:3 • JOURNAL AWWA | MARCH 2006 91
 In his capacity as engineer for the Chelsea
Water Works Company, Simpson was faced
squarely with the public’s demands for better
drinking water. The source of all London
water works was the Thames, at that time lit-
tle more than an open sewer. The year of
Simpson’s first trip to inspect successful fil-
ters in operation, an unprecedented public
outcry against foul drinking water occurred
in the form of a thick and scathing pamphlet.
The pamphlet led to commission hearings
and reports and doubtless spurred Simpson
and the Chelsea Water Works in their work.
Inspection trips and discussions with
Telford and Thom culminated in Simpson’s
1827 experimental filter. The system con-
sisted of two square settling reservoirs con-
nected to the filter, also in the shape of a
square. The filter media was coarse-to-fine
gravel and sand, with the coarsest material on
the bottom. The reservoirs worked alter-
nately, filtering 90,000 gallons every 24
hours. In addition to backwashing, the sand
in the filter was periodically scraped off and
carefully washed.
Three years later, after the experimental
filter had proved successful, the Chelsea
Water Works Company put a permanent fil-
ter into use. It was constructed exactly as the
experimental bed, but on a larger scale.
1869
1872
Kirkwood publishes book Slow sand filter installed
on use of filters at Poughkeepsie, N.Y.,
for municipal supplies, United States
United States
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Of all the historic filters described, the
slow sand filter is the only one still used by
some municipalities.
One man focused his attention on soften-
ing during this era of filtration milestones.
Thomas Clark, a chemistry professor at
Aberdeen, Scotland, patented a process for
softening water by adding lime. Although
water had been softened for ages by using
soap, wood ashes, and alkaline salts, it
remained for Clark to propose a practical
process. As a result of Clark’s work, several
softening plants were built, primarily for
industrial supplies. In general, indifference
toward water softening prevailed into the
20th century.
The US takes the lead
After a bold but unsuccessful start, the
development of filtration in the United
States was interrupted until after the Civil
War—almost a 40-year gap. Soon after the
country was reunited, the United States
became a leader in the art of water treat-
ment—a position it retains to this day.
That first abortive attempt at a filter plant
was an upward-flow backwash system built
in 1832 at Richmond, Va. It failed almost
immediately. By that time slow sand filtration
was well established in Britain, but Ameri-
1882
Koch discovers TB bacillus,
Germany
cans did not pursue further experiments.
Among 146 water works in the United States
and Canada, there was only one filter plant.
If, as Shakespeare said, “the past is but pro-
logue to the future,” then the latter part of the
19th century marks the beginning of today’s
water industry. Engineers, chemists, and other
scientists began to apply scientific study prin-
ciples to the investigation of water treatment
processes and the design of related facilities.
James P. Kirkwood produced the first book in
any language on the use of filters in municipal
water supplies (1869). Material for the book
came from Kirkwood’s tour of 19 European fil-
ter plants, undertaken for the city of St. Louis,
Mo. He recommended that St. Louis provide
filtration, but city fathers rejected the idea
while Kirkwood was traveling.
From the laboratory of M.C. Jeunnet in
Algeria came the first detailed experiments
using alum as a coagulating agent. Sanitari-
ans disregarded Jeunnet’s findings and
adhered to their prejudice against using
alum. Once more, in the mid-19th century,
implementation lagged behind technology.
Somerville and Raritan, N.J., were the
first municipalities in the United States to
use chemical coagulation. After 1885, coagu-
lation installations grew in numbers slowly
but steadily.
1882
1883
Rapid filtration introduced
at Somerville, N.J.,
United States
2006 © American Water Works Association
Although coagulation had reached a stage
of acceptability, softening languished as a
treatment process until English civil engineer
John Henderson Porter improved the 40-
year-old Clark process. He made mechanical
improvements and added soda ash to remove
permanent hardness of sulfates. In 1897,
Winnipeg, Canada, installed the first suc-
cessful municipal softening plant in America.
Vestiges of old practices persisted
throughout the period, however. A case in
point: plain sedimentation without filtration.
In the United States plain sedimentation was
the only technique used until the late 19th
century, and most of the plants were too
small to perform satisfactorily.
Slow becomes fast
The United States saw its first slow sand
filter installed at Poughkeepsie, N.Y., in
1872. Thirty years later there were still only
20 in the United States and Canada, mainly
because successful rapid sand filtration was
introduced at Somerville, N.J, in 1882.
Rapid sand filters quickly outdistanced slow
sand, and by 1940 the ratio was approxi-
mately 23 to 1.
The first rapid filter was a drum-shaped,
cast-iron apparatus totally unlike slow sand
beds. In rapid filtration, a size-graded
1895
National Board of Health Hazen’s pioneer treatise
publishes study on water on filtration,
pollution, United States
United States
SYMONS | 98:3 • JOURNAL AWWA | MARCH 2006 93
 media was used, with the coarsest gravel at
the bottom.
The larger interstices between the size-
graded particles allowed the water to pass
through quickly. Another feature of the rapid
filter was mechanical stirrers used during
backwashing to break up accumulated sedi-
Safe ment on the sand surface.
Today, with beds enclosed in plant build-
ings, rapid filters are used by most American
municipalities.
The Lawrence Experiment Station in
Massachusetts became the backdrop for the
most active period in the history of American
water treatment. One of the chief chemists at
Lawrence was Allen Hazen. He conducted a
series of studies that unequivocally proved
the effectiveness of filtration.
By 1893 sanitation finally had been admit-
ted to the realm of science. A young man
named George Warren Fuller was trained in
the new field and became Hazen’s successor at
Lawrence. Fuller did for rapid sand filtration
what Hazen had done for filtration in general—
proved, through careful experimentation, that
it was an adequate and effective technique.
Pollution from population and industry
had not tainted surface waters much, but it
was recognized this situation would not last. A
year before AWWA was founded, the National
Board of Health started extensive tests to
1897
1896
Bleaching powder added Winnipeg installs municipal
to water supply stops softening plant,
typhoid epidemic, Canada
Yugoslavia
94 MARCH 2006 | JOURNAL AWWA • 98:3 | SYMONS 2006 © American Water Works Association
detect pollution in water. The study, pub-
lished in 1883, became the forerunner of
Standard Methods for the Examination of
Water and Wastewater.
The era of safe water
Today, most city water utilities supple-
ment sedimentation and filtration with chlo-
rine disinfectant. Although bleaching pow-
der had been used in textile mills since the
18th century, it was first used to purify foul-
smelling water in the 1830s. It took more
than 70 years for chlorine to gain widespread
use in public water supplies.
The reason for the lag between discov-
ery and application was the lack of a theo-
retical framework. The discovery that dis-
ease was caused by living organisms had to
be made.
The great London cholera epidemic of
1848 made it clear that disease was no
respector of class or income. The “sanitari-
ans,” as they were called, made some
attempts to secure pure water supplies for
the cities. Limited in their knowledge of dis-
ease, they ascribed it vaguely to “filth.” Their
cleanup efforts helped, but typhoid and
cholera held sway as the most virulent killers
until the end of the century.
The discovery science needed was
announced by Louis Pasteur. But Pasteur’s
1902
Town of Middlekerke installs
chlorine disinfection system,
Belgium
“germ theory” was resisted for a long time
by the scientific community. Then, in 1882,
a young German doctor named Robert
Koch discovered the tuberculosis bacillus.
“The golden age of bacteriology” was
launched. In the mid-1880s the cholera bac-
teria was discovered and water identified as
its carrier.
Once it had caught on, nothing in the
field of water purification spread as rapidly
as chlorination. After bleaching powder was
used to stop a typhoid epidemic on the Adri-
atic Sea, there followed a long list of “firsts”
in the use of chlorine disinfection.
Middlekerke, Belgium, was the first city in
the world to install a permanent chlorine dis-
infection system. The year was 1902. The
United States followed in 1908 with two mile-
stones of its own. The first effective demon-
stration in the United States of hypochlorites
in water purification occurred at the Bubbly
Creek filters of the Chicago, Ill., stockyards.
The first large-scale chlorination of a munici-
pal water supply took place in spite of the
efforts of the city fathers of Jersey City, N.J.
The town council filed a suit against the pri-
vate water company for violating its contract
to provide “a supply of pure and wholesome
water” from Boonton Reservoir.
Dr. John L. Leal, the company’s sanitary
adviser, conducted a series of experiments
CH=CH2 CHO COOH
O3 HCHO O3
+
1906
1908
American experiments with
ozonation in New York,
United States
96 MARCH 2006 | JOURNAL AWWA • 98:3 | SYMONS
with chlorine liquid and gas and convinced
the company that chlorine purification was
the way to go. Meanwhile, the water com-
pany flatly refused the court order arising
from the lawsuit. Leal continued his experi-
ments, and the water company went ahead
with designs for a chlorination plant. Dr.
Leal’s perseverance lead to further litigation,
after which the court held that chlorine was
an effective disinfectant. After providing ser-
vice for two years, the Boonton plant was
approved in 1910.
In the wake of this landmark case, chlori-
nation treatment began springing up all over
the country. In 1900 there were 36 deaths
from typhoid per 100,000 population. By
1950 the typhoid death rate had dropped to
0.1 per 100,000. The widespread use of
chlorine made the difference.
Consumer and government
demands
The first two decades of the 20th century
were marked by continued research and
development and (to use George Warren
Fuller’s words) “. . . started the era of refine-
ments and extensions.” For the consumer,
taste, odor, and color of drinking water are
just as important as its healthful properties.
The use of charcoal for improvement of
drinking water dates back 40 centuries, but
1910
Chlorine introduced to Bubbly Chlorine purification
Creek Filters at Union Stockyards at Boonton, N.J., plant
in Chicago, Ill., United States approved after 2 years
of operation,
United States.
2006 © American Water Works Association

modern treatment practice began in 1924
when powdered activated carbon became
available. It was first used to remove tastes
and odors caused by algae. Granular acti-
vated carbon was introduced later, but did
not find favor until about 1970 when devel-
opment of onsite reactivation systems made
its use more feasible.
Ozonation as a disinfection process was
tried experimentally in 1906 in New York
City after it had been installed in several
European cities. Adoption of the process
was hampered by the high cost of installa-
tion and operation. France is the only coun-
try to use ozone on a large scale. The
United States has adhered to chlorination
for disinfection.
By far the most dramatic and promising
20th century development in water treat-
ment and supply is desalination. Distillation
of seawater had been limited mostly to ship-
board installations until around 1940 when
the first land plants were built in desert loca-
tions. Toward 1960 the US Department of
the Interior Office of Saline Water began
research on several systems for desalting
brines and seawater. In the mid-1960s a
large municipal desalting plant was installed
at San Diego, Calif.
Distilling brackish water is one method
that would seem to solve the world’s water
1940
1924
Baylis tests Desalination plant
powdered built on land,
activated carbon United States
to remove tastes
and odors,
United States
2006 © American Water Works Association
SDWA
supply problems but for two important
details: The process requires too much
energy and maintenance. Although distilla-
tion is generally prohibitive to the United
States and other energy-importing countries,
it has been ideal for the energy exporters.
Fortunately, distillation is not the only
desalting technique. Reverse osmosis forces
water through a plastic membrane, leaving
the salt behind. It is a one-step method,
using relatively small amounts of energy.
Reverse osmosis is gaining acceptance in
the United States, particularly in areas of
brackish water, and its future looks most
promising.
During the 20th century, the state of the
art of water treatment has improved, knowl-
edge of water and health has increased, and
society’s use of water has become more
complex. In addition, government regula-
tions have multiplied and created much
controversy.
Probably the single most important
event of the 1970s for the water supply
industry was passage of the Safe Drinking
Water Act, which still is in early stages of
implementation. Regulations developed
under the act will have a profound effect on
the course of water treatment research,
process developments, and refinements for
decades to come.
1965
1974
Municipal Safe Drinking
desalination plant Water Act passed,
installed at San United States
Diego, Calif.,
United States
SYMONS | 98:3 • JOURNAL AWWA | MARCH 2006 97

Symons
George E. Symons (1903–2001), AWWA presi-
dent in 1973–74 and a well-known environmen-
tal engineering writer and editor, had a long
and varied career working in the water and
wastewater industry.
Symons was born Apr. 20, 1903, in Danville,
Ill., and 12 years later had his first water-related
job—as a water boy on a water supply dam pro-
ject. At the age of 16, he got a summer job as an
afternoon-shift operator at the filter plant where
his father worked. Later, he would teach at the
university level, work as a chemist in water and
wastewater plants, and work in the water and
wastewater industry as an editor and consultant.
After receiving his doctorate in sanitary
chemistry from the University of Illinois,
Symons became the chief chemist for the Buffalo
(N.Y.) Sewer Authority in 1936. Symons moved
to New York City in 1943 to be an editor with
Water and Sewage Works for eight years; then,
following a stint as an environmental editorial
consultant, he was employed as the editor of
Water and Waste Engineering for six years. (The
two magazines merged in 1981 to become Water
Engineering & Management.) Then after a
period as a freelance writer and editor, Symons
joined the consulting firm Malcolm Pirnie as a
manager of special projects, an area that later
became marketing and communications. After
he retired in 1978, he was a member of a special
team for the US Environmental Protection
Agency that studied acid rain in the Northeast.
98 MARCH 2006 | JOURNAL AWWA • 98:3 | SYMONS 2006 © American Water Works Association
A prolific writer, Symons authored more than
700 published pieces—technical articles, editori-
als, columns, technical meeting reports, and
practice manuals. His first article in JOURNAL
AWWA, a two-part report on the bacteriological
pollution of the Niagara River, appeared in
1939. His last article in the JOURNAL—on acid
rain—was published 45 years later, in 1984.
His son, Jim Symons, became well-known in the
1970s for his work assessing the problem of halo-
genated organics in chlorinated water.
In addition to being president of AWWA,
Symons was recognized by the association by
honorary membership and induction into the
Water Industry Hall of Fame. He also received
AWWA’s Diven Medal and Fuller Award, and
he served AWWA as chairman of the General
Policy Council, a member of the board of direc-
tors, and chairman of the Water Quality Divi-
sion. During Symons’s term as president, he
proposed a separate membership classification
for operators and a publication directed specifi-
cally at them—both of which were later realized,
the latter as OPFLOW. He was interviewed by
the editor of JOURNAL AWWA in its June 1989
issue about the role and impact of the magazine
in its 75-year history, and he was the subject of
a lengthy profile in the April 1990 issue of The
Diplomate, the magazine of the American Acad-
emy of Environmental Engineers (AAEE).
His work with the Water Environment Fed-
eration earned him that organization’s Emer-
son Medal, the Bedell Award, a special award
for preparing the group’s 50-year history, and
honorary membership in the group. He was a
diplomate in AAEE, a fellow in the American
Society of Civil Engineers and the American
Public Health Association, and a life member of
the American Chemical Society, the American
Institute of Chemical Engineers, the National
Society of Professional Engineers, and the Amer-
ican Public Works Association. His biography
was listed in Who’s Who in America, Who’s
Who in Engineering, Engineers of Distinction,
American Men and Women of Science, Chemi-
cal Who’s Who, Community Leaders in Amer-
ica, and Who’s Who in U.S. Writers, Editors,
and Poets.