HISTORY: Big balls were used to clear sewers of the 1870s

• Posted by Jared Shepherd
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• September 23rd, 2014
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The sewer ball on a vintage postcard. Via delcampe.net Now that’s old school. Cleaning sewers in Paris in the 1870s literally required rolling giant balls of wood and iron through the tunnels. Atlas Obscura recently posted a story about the history of the world-famous sewer network under Paris, France,...

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#WaterWorks: Pipes, problems, and potential? Why water infrastructure stands in the national spotlight today.

• Posted by Jared Shepherd
• 3966 Views
• September 10th, 2014
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  Efficiency doesn’t always make headlines. Today, a national summit in Washington, D.C. is trying to change that by bringing attention to the water infrastructure our entire country relies on and yet so often overlooks. The goal is to raise awareness of the jobs and economic impact of America’s...

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PIC: And now, just your average sewer blockage longer than a Boeing 747.

• Posted by Jared Shepherd
• 4689 Views
• September 2nd, 2014
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Next time you consider flushing wipes or washing cooking grease down your drain, consider you might be contributing to a Boeing 747-size sewer blockage under your city. It happened in the UK where Thames Water recently spent four days clearing a 262-foot blockage of fat, grease, and disposable wipes...

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VIDEO: Whether you watch “Glee” or not, the irony here has got to make you laugh.

• Posted by Jared Shepherd
• 3980 Views
• May 31st, 2014
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You never know what will make it through the sewers and into one of our three treatment plants. And every wastewater plant operator has a story to tell. When we asked Southerly Wastewater Plant Operator in Training Christen Wood what was the weirdest thing she’s seen, here’s what she...

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VIDEO: “Police of the underworld,” Vienna’s sewer brigade of 1934

• Posted by Jared Shepherd
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• April 18th, 2014
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The city of Vienna once had a police squad specifically trained for sewer patrols. This 1934 British newsreel showcases the “canal brigade” of Vienna, Austria, braving the bowels of the city, a common hiding place for criminals at the time. Most interesting to us was the squad’s frequency of...

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#SewerCoverCONTEST: A sewer manhole cover as a canvas? Your design could be worth $500 for local charity.

• Posted by Jared Shepherd
• 4457 Views
• April 10th, 2014
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Next time you pass a manhole cover in the street, think of it as a cast-iron canvas and your design could last a lifetime. As the Sewer District prepares new green infrastructure and Project Clean Lake construction, we are offering northeast Ohioans the chance to design the cast-iron manhole...

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INFOGRAPHIC: Could Captain America use a manhole cover as his shield?

• Posted by Jared Shepherd
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• April 2nd, 2014
• in Miscellaneous
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It’s not made of vibranium, but could a manhole cover keep Cap protected?Original Captain America rendering—without the manhole cover—by R. Meinerding. The latest Captain America movie is big news in Cleveland, and particularly big news with us at the Sewer District. So that led us to an obvious question:...

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PIC: This accidental image could not have been better.

• Posted by Jared Shepherd
• 3740 Views
• April 1st, 2014
• in Miscellaneous
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Jerry Mach, one of our Sewer System Maintenance & Operation team members, needed to snap a photograph during a recent sewer inspection. When he did, he didn’t realize he had accidentally changed the camera settings to black-and-white. The awesome result is an eerie but revealing image of the infrastructure...

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VIDEO: This guy kayaks into a DC sewer tunnel. It's educational, but don't try it at home.

• Posted by Jared Shepherd
• 4648 Views
• March 27th, 2014
• in Miscellaneous
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This 8-minute video by EarthEcho International—featuring underground construction and a kayaking expedition into the bowels of a combined sewer—highlights the water-quality challenges of Washington, DC and what DC Water is doing about it. Why is it relevant to Cleveland? It’s a tale that reflects the same obstacles and solutions...

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PHOTO: Safety first, top hats are a priority.

• Posted by Jared Shepherd
• 3705 Views
• March 6th, 2014
• in Miscellaneous
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Quite dapper for a sewer tunnel tour, no? These gents were friends of English civil engineer Joseph Bazalgette attending a tour of the main drainage works of his new London Sewage System in 1862. Tours of anything similar today are accompanied by hard hats rather than top hats, but...

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