Travers. — Fighting Pollution in Ohio 287 



instituting a suit for damages to the extent of $20,000 on the ground 

 that this disposal plant is not carrying out the work for which it was 

 intended. They are putting out city sewage. About four or five million 

 gallons of city sewage is very easy to control by the process I have 

 outlined. Five or seven grains will control all the organic matter in a 

 gallon of ordinary domestic sewage. But in the case of a white paper 

 factory, forty grains will be required — there are 7,000 grains in a pound. 

 The next in line would probably be the creameries, taking 75 grains. 

 The very highest I have come across so far would take 185 grains. I 

 am not a believer in coke filtering plants ; I believe in chemical pre- 

 cipitation, a system which has been used with great success in the old 

 countries for a long time. 



Mr. W. H. Rowe, West Buxton, Me. : Your samples show a pre- 

 cipitation of from 10 to 15 per cent. I should think that if you let it 

 run into your streams or rivers, you would soon fill them up. 



Mr. Travers : We do not let it run into the rivers or streams ; 

 that is the idea of these tanks. The first precipitation represents about 

 10 per cent. That is drawn off through a hole in the bottom of the 

 vat to an auxiliary tank where it is allowed to settle down again ; or 

 it is taken immediately from there and passed through a centrifugal 

 drum built on the plan of a cream separator. It turns very rapidly, 

 drives the water off and brings it down to 40 per cent moisture. Then 

 it is available to handle, store away, or dry for use as fertilizer. But 

 we aim not to let any of it get into the stream as it would be useless 

 to precipitate it and then let it go into the stream. 



Mr. Lewis Radcliffe, Washington, D. C. : Are you finding a com- 

 mercial market for many of these sludges you are securing from the 

 factory wastes? 



Mr. Travers : That is a matter to which I have not given much 

 thought. There was one concern at Canton that was figuring on spend- 

 ing a million dollars on a purification plant. I told them that if they 

 invested an amount not exceeding $500 for a feeder, they could utilize 

 two of their vats and dispense with the use of sixteen, and that they 

 would get better results than in any other way. After I had made my 

 demonstration, a gentleman who was there said he would pay for the 

 treatment of the water by chemical precipitation if they would allow 

 him the sludge. Now, the International Harvester Company really is 

 an authority on fertilizer values, and I have a statement here made by 

 them with regard to the value of cattle, horse, hog, sheep, chicken 

 manure and sludge from domestic sewage. This list was issued before 

 the war ; the values have increased ■ considerably since. They state the 

 value of sludge taken from domestic sewage to be $8.61 a ton. Our 

 Government reports, carried over a period of three years, show that the 

 sludge taken from a straw-board factory, consisting of fine particles of 

 straw, have about the same or even greater value than barnyard manure. 

 A test was made by planting various crops and fertilizing in one case 

 with manure, in another with no fertilizer, and in another case with the 



