S & S Scholars Award - Treating Sewage: Technology, Science, Labor and Law in an Industrial Ecosystem

University Of Illinois At Urbana-Champaign, Urbana IL

Investigators

Abstract

Intellectual Merit: Biological sewage treatment, like electricity, power generation, telephones, or mass transit, is one of the key technologies of the late 19th and 20th centuries. Present in almost every town and city, sewage treatment plants are a major part of the infrastructure of the developed nations, and are responsible not only for protecting public health, but also the ecology of rivers, lakes and oceans. In the United States alone, the estimated capital stock of public sewerage facilities in 1997 was $274 billion, with annual spending for construction and operation and maintenance of almost $50 billion. Despite their ubiquity and importance, however, sewage treatment has received little attention from historians of science and technology. Nevertheless, sewage treatment provides a rich arena for addressing several important issues in science and technology studies. This project will examine the relationship between science, engineering and craft work, using the concept of process control as a case study. Sanitary scientists encouraged plant operators to use laboratory-based tests to control the sewage process. Operators, on their part, often utilized more craft-based, experiential methods. By examining the history of process control in sewage treatment plants, this project addresses issues of technical work, conflict between engineers and production plant operators, and the history of labor control in technical industries. The proposal also explores the tensions between engineers and operators. Both groups were part of the main professional society for sewage plant workers. Analyzing their interactions in professional societies reveals the ways in which boundaries between science, engineering and craft-work were negotiated, established, and at times transgressed. The study will also examine the conflict between public and private interest in patenting scientific discoveries. Sewage treatment processes resulted in many new discoveries, and were the subject of long-running patent feuds. This project will examine publicly-supported research on sanitation as well as concerns in the scientific profession over the ethics of privatizing scientific discovery. Analysis of those issues will offer insights into current disputes regarding the patenting of university and government sponsored research. Broader Impacts: Sewage treatment plants are essential for preventing pollution and protecting the public health. By understanding the factors important in their operation, this project will lead to a better understanding for improving sewage treatment plant performance. In addition, sewage treatment plants are ecosystems. Understanding their management provides insights into ecosystem management in general. Ecosystem management has become one of the nation's primary conservation strategies, adopted by many federal and state resource management agencies. Despite its increasing use, however, there remains much uncertainty about its scope, practice, and success. Ecosystem management has a number of definitions, but at its root it can be described as the manipulation of the processes in the ecosystem to sustain the delivery of desired goods and services. (Christensen 1996). Yet ecosystem management as a process is poorly understood. Historical analysis can provide critical insight into this increasingly dominant way of understanding and managing nature. People have been manipulating the environment for human needs for millennia. By focusing on the practice of ecosystem management, as undertaken by scientists and engineers, fisheries and forestry workers, planners and policy makers, historians can help illuminate the development of ecosystem management over time, and analyze reasons for its successes, failures, persistence, or demise.