2006 Issue

www.utahengineerscouncil.org 16 UEC JOURNAL February 2006 kinetics was embodied in widely-read books and papers. He had a profound impact on the profession. A survey taken in 1949 showed that about half of all American doctorate degrees in Sanitary Engi- neering had been earned at Harvard, and over half of the State Sanitary Engineers had received advanced degrees under Fair’s direction. Arguably, the most significant development in environmental engineering in the first half of the 20th century occurred in 1923. That was the year Abel Wolman, who had recently been appointed Chief Engineer of the Maryland Department of Health, developed and perfected techniques for controlled chlorination of water. These techniques made possible the prescription of chlorine feed rates for water leaving the treatment plant sufficient to provide for effective and reliable disinfection. With filtration and/or reliable disinfection, the major public health threat of water-borne disease ceased to exist in the U.S. by World War II. The impact of sewage on water quality and the need for safe drinking water identified in Massachusetts and other major ur- ban centers in the U.S. gave impetus for the creation of a sanitary engineering component in 1890 within the US Public Health Ser- vice (USPHS). In 1913, a group of medical officers, engineers, and scientists took over the laboratories at an abandonedMarine Hospi- tal in Cincinnati, Ohio, with a mission to control water pollution. This center produced much of the fundamental research on which the control of water pollution is founded, including: ■ definition of the Oxygen Sag Equation by Streeter and Phelps; ■ confirmation of the rate of oxygenation of polluted waters by Theriault; ■ confirmation of the rate of atmospheric reaeration by Streeter; ■ definition of the elements of bacterial pollution by Hoskins; ■ development of major elements of stream biology by Purdy; and ■ initiation of studies on industrial wastes The Academy’s Creation The development of the environmental engineering profession over its first hundred years created a culture apart from the other SOCIETY FORUM AMERICAN ACADEMY OF ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERS A History of AAEE — continued ▲