The two following preliminary reports were written leading up to the 1914 report.
1911
Partial report upon the comprehensive plan for the collection, purification and disposal of the sewage of the entire city [and] Report of the Bureau of Surveys comprising work at the Sewage Experiment Station at Spring Garden, Philadelphia, 1910. Philadelphia: Dunlap Printing Co., 1911. PWD Historical Collection 2004.058.0056
1912
Report upon the comprehensive plan for the collection, purification and disposal of the sewage of the City of Philadelphia. [Typed manuscript with inserted illustrative material] Department of Public Works Bureau of Surveys, 1912. PWD Historical Collection 2004.058.0107
WaterHistoryPHL also includes individual illustrations from the 1914 report. You can find them by clicking on “1914 Sewage Treatment Plan” in the SUBJECTS list.
The plan outlined in these three volumes was prompted by a 1905 Act of the Pennsylvania Legislature aimed at preventing sewage pollution of the state’s streams, and a subsequent Ordinance of City Councils. Based on the latest research of the time–City engineers toured sewage plants in Europe, twice, to gather information and ideas–the plan provided the basic configuration for the system of interceptor sewers and treatment plants that the City eventually implemented. As often happens when any huge public works project encounters the inertia of municipal government, implementation of the plan was piecemeal at first and took more than 50 years to complete. The work was at first delayed by corrupt contractors and intransigent politicians, and then by the interruption of work by two World Wars and a drying up of capital funds during the Depression. As the works outlined in the plan languished the pollution of the City’s streams, especially the Delaware River, went from bad to worse. By the early 1940s, hydrogen sulfide gas bubbling up from the polluted river water peeled paint off ships at port, rusted the metal on dockside buildings, and tarnished silver coins in sailor’s pockets. The stench of the river, on hot summer days when the wind was from the east, was carried a mile inland, all the way to City Hall, which some editorial writers of the time deemed appropriate.
The Pennypack Sewage Treatment Works, built specifically to keep the wastes from City institutions in Northeast Philadelphia Creek from entering the city’s water supply at the Torresdale Filter Plant, was opened in 1910. But this was never meant to be permanent, and in 1923 it was superseded y the Northeast Sewage Treatment Plant at Richmond Street and Wheatsheaf Lane,. This was the first of the three large plants called for in the city’s reports, but it provided only minimal treatment for a small percentage of the City’s sewage. While sections of interceptor sewers were constructed along various streams over the years, the final push for the completion of the system had to wait until after World War II. In the early to mid-1950s the City finally completed all three treatment plants on line–the Southwest and Southeast plants joining the Northeast Plant, which was completely updated at that time. It took another decade, until 1966, before the system of huge interceptor sewers (some more than 24 feet across), which kept sewage out of the rivers and carried it to the treatment plants, were finally completed.
At the Internet Archives you can also download these reports (1911, 1912, and 1914) in a variety of file types other than PDF, or read them online with a page-flipping tool.