BIG SEWERAGE SCHEMES

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27395, 7 July 1954, Page 11

BIG SEWERAGE SCHEMES

American Experts To Report

ARRIVAL AT WEEK-END

Two noted American drainage and sewage disposal engineers—Dr. David H. Caldwell, Ph.D., M.Sc., and Professor Charles G. Hyde, LLD. B.Sc—will begin this week-end a special investigation into schemes and proposals of the Christchurch Drainage Board. Two members of the panel of five American and English engineers which made recommendations for a metropolitan sewerage and treatment and disposal scheme in Auckland, they will arrive in Christchurch on Saturday and work until Wednesday. They will be given a free hand to look over the Drainage Board’s proposals, including main trunk sewers, new pumping station and disposal proposals, and to offer such comment, advice and recommendations as they think fit. Although the trunk sewers are advanced and the pumping station in Pages road is in the early stages of construction, the two experts will be asked to express an opinion whether they are adequate or the best for the future needs of Christchurch and the expanding district served by the board. Although much information has been obtained from overseas, the Drainage Board has not yet determined the method of treatment and disposal of sewage, now treated at its Bromley farm. The overseas panel recommended a scheme of filtration and oxydisation treatment and disposal in Manukau harbour for the Auckland metropolitan area.

Executive and staff officers of the Drainage Board will be on call from the time the experts arrive to give them any information, plans or engineering data. Dr. Caldwell is a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, Chemical Society, Water Works Association, the Californian Sewage Works Association, and the North American Society for Testing Materials. He was research assistant in civil and sanitary engineering, engineer of the engineering experimental station, and instructor in, sanitary engineering at the University of Illinois from 1938 to 1942, when he graduated Ph.D. He was assistant sanitary engineer of the California State Department of Public Health from 1942 to 1943, and from 1944 to 1947 he was district sanitary engineer of the Public Works Department, 12th Naval District, California. He was associated with the Santa Clara County sewage disposal curvey in 1945. Consultant to Many Cities

Since 1947 Dr. Caldwell has been a partner in the San Francisco firm of Brown and Caldwell, civil and chemical engineers, whose office and laboratory facilities are devoted exclusively to problems of operation, maintenance and design in the fields of water technology, sewage treatment, and industrial wastes disposal. The firm has carried out a number of surveys and reports on water supply and sewerage for cities, counties and business houses in California and Nevada, and acts as consultants to nearly 75 cities and other bodies. Dr. Caldwell is the author of several technical publications on hydraulics, water, and sewage treatment and purification. Professor Hyde, whp graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, Water Works Association, and Federation of Sewage Works Associations, and a fellow of the American Public Health Association. He was assistant professor, associate professor, and professor of sanitary engineering while he was at the University of California from 1905 to 1944, since when he has been professor emeritus. He was consulting engineer on many hydraulic and sanitary works, including the California State Department of Health, from 1911 to 1914. He was a member of the engineering commission which designed the sanitary works at Camp Fremont, a major in the sanitary engineering section of the Sanitary Corps, United States Army, and in charge of the sanitary engineering section of the Surgeon-General’s office in 1919.

From 1932 to 1944 Professor Hyde was consultant to the San Francisco Board of Public Health, and in 1934 and 1935 he was chairman of the board of consulting engineers dealing with San Francisco’s sewerage and sewage disposal, holding a similar position in 1940 and 1941 with the board reporting on the East Bay cities’ sewage disposal survey.