Cleansing, draining, and sanitizing the city: Conceptions and uses of water in the Montreal region

Canadian Historical Review

Volumn 87, Issue 4, 2006, Pages 621-651

  Dagenais, Michèle ^a   Durand, Caroline ^b  

^a UNIVERSITÉ DE MONTRÉAL   (Canada)

^b MCGILL UNIVERSITY   (Canada)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 37249017953     PISSN: 00083755     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.3138/CHR/87.4.621     Document Type: Review

References (107)

1. Séverin Lachapelle, 'Amis lecteurs,' Journal d'hygiène populaire 1, no. 1 (May 1884): 1
2. On this notion of the world being subject to an environmental determinism holding that social problems can be resolved by improvements to the physical elements of the city, see Martin V. Melosi, The Sanitary City: Urban Infrastructure in America from Colonial Times to the Present (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000), 107
3. Harold Platt, Shock Cities: The Environmental Transformation and Reform of Manchester and Chicago (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), esp. 301-12
4. Christine Boyer, Dreaming the Rational City: The Myth of American City Planning (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1983)
5. e siècle (Montreal: Boréal, 2006)
6. Arn Keeling, 'Urban Waste Sinks as a Natural Ressource: The Case of the Fraser River,' Urban History Review / Revue d'histoire urbaine 34, no. 1 (Fall 2005): 58-70
7. Catherine Brace, 'Public Works in the Canadian City: The Provision of Sewers in Toronto 1870-1913,' Urban History Review / Revue d'histoire urbaine, 23, no. 2 (Mar. 1995): 33-43
8. Douglas Baldwin, 'Les réseaux d'égouts,' Bâtir un pays: Histoire des travaux publics au Canada, ed. Norman R. Ball, 237-261 (Montreal: Boréal, 1988)
9. Joel Tarr has used the phrase 'the search for the ultimate sink' to describe this almost universal tendency to remove polluting substances to places where they would not harm human health, with no regard for the environment. Major water systems, in fact, have long served as 'ultimate sinks.' Joel A. Tarr, The Search for the Ultimate Sink: Urban Pollution in Historical Perspective (Akron, OH: University of Akron Press, 1996)
10. On the disposal of waste water in Vancouver, see Arn Keeling, 'Sink or Swim: Water Pollution and Environmental Politics in Vancouver, 1889-1975,' BC Studies 142/3 (Spring-Summer 2004): 69-101
11. As Patrick Fournier notes, in matters of conceptions of the environment and in particular of pollution, it is important to avoid conceptualizing '[les] évolutions passées en termes de ruptures. Or même lorsque les conditions matérielles changent rapidement avec l'invention d'activités, donc de formes de pollution, des attitudes et des représentations antérieures persistent en concurrence avec les nouvelles.' Fournier, 'De la souillure à la pollution: Un essai d'interprétation des origines de l'idée de pollution,' in Le démon moderne: La pollution dans les sociétés urbaines et industrielles d'Europe / The Modern Demon: Pollution in Urban and Industrial European Societies, ed. Christoph Bernhardt and Geneviève Massard-Guilbaud (Clermont-Ferrand: Presses Universitaires Blaise-Pascal, 2002), 41
12. 'The physical and moral characteristics of London's population, therefore, was perceived as being institutionally amenable to technical adjustment.' Christopher Otter, 'Cleansing and Clarifying: Technology and Perception in Nineteenth-Century London,' Journal of British Studies 43, no. 1 (2004): 41
13. e siècles (Paris: Champ Vallon, 1999)
14. 'This erosion of ecological memory was compounded by another set of changes, which masked the social and environmental consequences involved in how Americans went about obtaining food.' Ted Steinberg, 'Down to Earth: Nature, Agency, and Power in History,' American Historical Review 107, no. 3 (June 2002): 814
15. Ginette Gagnon, 'L'aqueduc de Montréal au tournant du siècle (1890-1914): l'établissement de la purification de l'eau potable' (Master's thesis, Université de Montréal, 1998), 143-50
16. Dieter Schott aptly makes this point in 'Urban Environmental History: What Lessons Are There To Be Learnt?' Boreal Environment Research 9 (Dec. 2004): 519-28
17. In fact, the questions being posed 'were much more complicated: they were political and pragmatic, concerned as much with appearance as with substance, and as much with persuading people as with purifying sewage.' Christopher Hamlin, 'William Dibdin and the Idea of Biological Sewage Treatment,' Technology and Culture 29 (Apr. 1988): 218
18. cited in Platt, Shock Cities, 410
19. This idea is also taken up by Martin V. Melosi, Effluent America: Cities, Industries, Energy and the Environment (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2001), 143-57
20. J.M. Beausoleil, 'Clinique de Montréal: les fosses fixes,' Journal d'hygiène populaire 1, no. 14 (Dec. 1884): 157
21. The Journal d'hygiène populaire, as well as its successor as of 1901, the Bulletin sanitaire, constituted the primary vehicles through which the Health Board of the Province of Quebec reached out to both the general public and those involved in health care. Although our article does not explore this dimension in itself, it is interesting to note that these journals did not operate in a vacuum at the time. As the numerous articles to this effect demonstrate, Montreal and Quebec's chemists, doctors, and hygienists of the day were well aware of the problems existing and solutions implemented in other parts of the Western world
22. Every year, such diseases cost dozens of lives. Although the number of typhoid cases began to decrease as of 1890-1, there were nevertheless three periods of particularly marked increases: 1900-1 (684 cases), 1906-7 (738 cases), and 1909-10 (1,473 cases). G. Gagnon, 'L'aqueduc de Montréal,' 144
23. See also Benoît Gaumer, Georges Desrosiers, and Othmar Keel, Histoire du Service de santé de la ville de Montréal (Montreal: Presses de l'Université Laval / IQRC, Sainte-Foy, 2002), 82-4
24. Ted Steinberg rightly formulates this reproach in 'Down to Earth.'
25. On the process that led to the municipalization of the water service, see Dany Fougères, L'approvisionnement en eau à Montréal, du privé au public, 1796-1865 (Sillery: Septentrion, 2004)
26. on the construction of the aqueduct itself, see Susan M. Ross, 'Steam or Water Power? Thomas C. Keefer and the Engineers Discuss the Montreal Waterworks in 1852,' Journal of the Society for Industrial Archeology 29, no. 1 (2003): 49-64
27. On this question, see the detailed history of Montreal's sewer networks in the nineteenth century in R. Gagnon, Questions d'égouts, in particular chap. 4
28. On the authority of scientists during this period and the increasing political influence they exercised, see Christopher Hamlin, A Science of Impurity: Water Analysis in Nineteenth-Century Britain (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1990)
29. At both the levels of the Montreal administration and the provincial government, doctors were gaining authority and influence. Witness the creation of a permanent Department of Health of the City of Montreal in 1865, which continued to develop and, as of 1885, took on increasing importance, resulting in the creation of several specialized divisions under the authority of medical doctors. In 1887, moreover, the Board of Health of the Province of Quebec was authorized soon after to order the creation of municipal health boards across the entire province. Gaumer, Desrosiers, and Keel, Histoire du Service de santé, 65-6
30. François Guérard, Histoire de la santé au Québec (Montréal: Boréal, 1996), 32 and after
31. A.B. Laroque, 'Mortalité de la ville de Montréal (suite),' Journal d'hygiène populaire 1, no. 4 (July 1884): 46
32. On the development of medical interventionism and its political implications in the nineteenth century, see Bruce Curtis, 'Social Investment in Medical Forms: The 1866 Cholera Scare and Beyond,' Canadian Historical Review 81, no. 3 (Sept. 2000): 347-79
33. Christopher Hamlin, 'Nuisance Inspection in England and Wales, 1865-1902,' in The Making of European Contemporary Cities: An Environmental History, Third International Round-Table on Urban Environmental History of the 19th and 20th Centuries, University of Siena, 2004, 200
34. 'Rapport d'inspection d'une éclosion de fièvre à la Pointe St Charles,' 31 Aug. 1889, 127, Conseil d'hygiène de la Province de Québec, Rapports d'inspections, 1887-1922, fonds E88, Archives nationales du Québec (ANQ)
35. e siècle,' Genèses 1 (Sept. 1990): 86-111
36. 'Rapport d'inspection au sujet d'une nuisance causée par des égouts privés,' 16 Feb. 1907, 21, fonds E88, ANQ
37. This system was presented in opposition to the principle of refuse collection: 'c'est-à-dire que les matières sont retenues sur place, et qu'on en dispose qu'à intervalles périodiques.' 'Notions d'hygiène (suite): le traitement des eaux ménagères,' Bulletin sanitaire 5, no. 3 (Mar. 1905): 19-24
38. 'Il faut de l'eau pour nettoyer et laver ... pour évacuer ... pour entraîner rapidement en dehors de la ville toutes les matières impures avant leur putréfaction.' J.L. Desroches, 'Le système du "tout à l'égout" à Montréal,' Journal d'hygiène populaire 4, no. 10 (Feb. 1888): 157
39. 'Inspection de l'aqueduc Migneron,' 17 Apr. and 28 Sept. 1895, 71-8, fonds E88, ANQ
40. S. Lachapelle, 'Le comité de santé,' Journal d'hygiène populaire 1, no. 10 (Oct. 1884): 119
41. On the new sanitary norms that combined the crusade for urban purification with new norms of modesty, see Pierre Goubert, La conquête de l'eau: L'avènement de la santé à l'époque industrielle (Paris: Laffont, 1986), especially chap. 3
42. See also Patrick Joyce, The Rule of Freedom: Liberalism and the Modern City (London: Verso, 2003), 65-6
43. 'Responsabilité dans la propagation de la fièvre typhoïde,' Bulletin sanitaire 1, no. 8 (Aug. 1901): 61
44. Alfred Brittain, 'Les égouts de Montréal,' Journal d'hygiène populaire 11, nos. 9 and 10 (Jan.-Feb. 1895): 289-90
45. J. Baker Edwards, Rapport analytique de l'approvisionnement d'eau, Montreal, 1873, 8. It should be underlined that the basic principles of dilution and oxygenation are not erroneous, but that a certain mass ratio of used waters to rate of river flow must be respected. The popularity of this practice, as much here as in other parts of the continent, can also be explained by its cost-saving character
46. Joel A. Tarr and Terry F. Yosie, 'Critical Decisions in Pittsburgh Water and Waste Water Treatment,' in Devastation and Renewal: An Environmental History of Pittsburgh and Its Region, ed. Joel A. Tarr (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2003), 74 onward
47. Louis Lesage, 'Discussion sur le plan d'agrandissement de l'aqueduc de Montréal,' in Rapport sur l'agrandissement proposé de l'aqueduc de Montréal, ed. Louis Lesage (Montreal: Starke, 1873), 6
48. Rhona Richman Kenneally, 'Depictions of Progress: Images of Montreal in Contemporary Guidebooks, 1839-1907,' Journal of the Society for the Study of Architecture in Canada / Journal de la Société pour l'étude de l'architecture au Canada 23, no. 1 (1998): 7-13
49. L.E. Fortier, 'Nos égouts,' Journal d'hygiène populaire 10, no. 4 (Aug. 1893): 98
50. Michèle Benoît and Roger Gratton, Pignon sur rue, les quartiers de Montréal (Montreal: Guérin, 1991), 2-3
51. Louise Pothier, 'Réseaux d'eau potable et d'eaux usées: l'hygiène publique et la société montréalaise 1642-1910,' in L'eau, l'hygiène publique et les infrastructures, ed. L. Pothier (Montreal: Groupe PGV - Diffusion de l'archéologie, 1996), 37
52. Les ruisseaux et fossés, 1956, collection des cartes et plans, Division de la gestion des documents et des archives (DGDA), Ville de Montréal
53. 'Report of the Joint Commission of Engineers, Appointed for the Purpose of Investigating and Reporting on the Best Means That Should Be Adopted to Abate the Nuisance Caused by the Deposit of Sewage in the Elgin Basin, in the Harbour of Montreal,' 31 Mar. 1911, 5, file 751, 2nd series, Dossiers de résolution du Conseil, DGDA; R. Gagnon, Questions d'égouts, 70-1
54. 'Preliminary Report upon the Sanitary Improvement of the Riviere St Pierre,' 22 May 1908, file 1049, 2nd series, DGDA
55. 'Rapport d'inspection de la rivière Saint-Pierre à Saint-Henri et Côte Saint-Paul,' 14 Nov. 1889, 151, fonds E88, ANQ
56. This was also because, in the wake of developments in bacteriological research, water tests began to be conducted in order to detect the biological sources of contamination. Chemical sources were thus neglected, and concern for them as a cause of pollution did not emerge until the middle of the twentieth century. Melosi, The Sanitary City, 136
57. 'Interim Report upon the Sanitary Improvement of the Little St Pierre River, Que.,' 16 Apr. 1910, 2-6, file 1049, 2nd series, DGDA
58. The Montreal Water and Power Company was a private aqueduct, founded in 1891 and purchased by the City of Montreal in 1928. At the end of the nineteenth century, the company supplied the suburban municipalities neighbouring Montreal. With the numerous annexations undertaken at the turn of the century, it also found itself supplying water to certain districts of Montreal. Herbert Cantwell, History of the Montreal Water Works, 1947, 6-14, DGDA
59. 'Inspection au sujet d'une épidémie de typhoïde dans des municipalités suburbaines de Montréal,' 15 Feb. 1914, 45, fonds E88, ANQ
60. On this comparison of the city to a living organism, see Topalov, 'La ville "congestionnée."'
61. DGDA, 2nd series, file 1049, 'Lettre du Conseil d'hygiène au Secrétaire du Bureau d'hygiène de la Cité de Montréal,' 17 Apr. 1897, 'Rapport de L. Laberge, médecin officier de santé du Bureau d'hygiène de Montréal,' 25 Sept. 1899
62. As this high-ranking bureaucrat pointed out, 'It could not carry the volume of water that would have to pass through it unless made of such a large size that the expense of so doing would be out of all proportion to its utility.' 'Lettre des ingénieurs municipaux au Maire de Montréal,' 22 Sept. 1897, file 1049, 2nd series, DGDA
63. 'Rapport d'inspection relatif à une nuisance causée par le déversement des égouts de Montréal,' 30 Aug. 1895, file 751, 2nd series, DGDA
64. 'Avis légal des avocats de la Cité de Montréal envers les Commissaires du Hâvre de Montréal,' 29 Nov. 1901, 2 and 3, file 751, 2nd series, DGDA
65. 'Lettre de l'ingénieur en chef du port de Montréal à la Cité de Montréal,' 25 July 1895 file 751, 5, 2nd series, DGDA
66. 'Report of the Joint Commission of Engineers,' 7
67. Indeed, the solution was not adopted until the situation further deteriorated. It must be kept in mind that this would have amounted to making the polluters pay for the necessary work. To this day, it is difficult to convince polluters to recognize their responsibility in this matter. Moreover, a 1916 investigation conducted in Canadian cities revealed that only 14 per cent of municipalities treated waste water. Michel F. Girard, L'écologisme retrouvé. Essor et déclin de la Commission de la conservation du Canada (Ottawa: Presses de l'Université d'Ottawa, 1994), 115-18
68. On the importance of the good reputation of water for business, see Tarr and Yosie, 'Critical Decisions in Pittsburgh Water,' 72
69. Keeling, 'Sink or Swim,' 73
70. 'Inspection de la prise d'eau d'un projet d'aqueduc à Longue-Pointe,' 27 Sept. 1901, 179-83, fonds E88, ANQ
71. 'Inspection de l'approvisionnement en eau du village de Pointe-Claire' and 'Inspection de l'approvisionnement en eau de Valois,' 27 July 1910, 257-8, fonds E88, ANQ
72. 'Rapport d'inspection sur une éclosion de fièvre typhoïde à Lachine,' 16, 17, and 23 Apr. and 5 June 1913, 137, fonds E88, ANQ
73. Michèle Dagenais, '"Returning to nature": Vacation and Life Style in the Montreal Region,' in Resources of the City: Contributions to an Environmental History of Modern Europe, ed. Dieter Schott, Bill Luckin, and Geneviève Massard Guilbaud (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005), 63-79
74. 'Rapport d'inspection au sujet de la typhoïde à Saint-Martin,' 15 Nov. 1898, 190, fonds E88, ANQ
75. 'Extrait du rapport du Dr J.A. Beaudry sur l'inspection de la prise d'eau de Saint-Laurent,' 27 Aug. 1903, file 2615, 3rd series, Dossiers de résolution du Conseil, DGDA
76. 'Mise en demeure du Conseil d'hygiène de la Province de Québec à la Ville de Montréal,' 13 Nov. 1913, file 2615, 3rd series, DGDA
77. 'Amendements à la loi d'hygiène publique de Québec, sanctionnés le 5 mars 1915,' Bulletin Sanitaire 15, no. 3 (Mar. 1915): 18-21
78. During this period, this procedure consisted of spreading the sewage on cultivation beds in order to convert it into fertilizer. The water was then directed into a stream, which in turn flowed into the Rivière des Prairies. Adopted in other Canadian and American cities, this practice was quickly abandoned at the beginning of the twentieth century. On waste-water treatment techniques, see Baldwin, 'Les réseaux d'égouts.'
79. e siècles,' Histoire urbaine, forthcoming. For their part, certain municipalities of the Vancouver metropolitan area agreed to a regional management plan as early as 1913. Keeling, 'Sink or Swim,' 83
80. The Imhoff model was a concrete septic tank containing two chambers and allowing for the rapid sedimentation of suspended matter. It was used widely in North America and Europe in the beginning of the twentieth century. Melosi, The Sanitary City, 171
81. 'Rapport de l'ingénieur en charge de la division nord au Surintendant du Service des égouts de Montréal sur la fosse Imhoff de Cartierville,' 22 Nov. 1917, file 2615, 3rd series, DGDA
82. 'Inspection de la rivière des Prairies au point de vue de sa pollution,' 16 and 29 Sept. 1908, 367-8, fonds E88, ANQ
83. James O. Meadows, 'Outline of Sanitary Water Work in the Province of Quebec,' Bulletin sanitaire 10, nos. 6-12 (June-Dec. 1910): 125
84. Further research is needed into what constituted the criteria for 'pure' water during this period. On the subject, see Hamlin, A Science of Impurity
85. The federal Department of the Interior commissioned these chemists following a request from the Montreal city council. Thomas McFarlane and A. McGill, 'L'eau que nous buvons: Rapport des analystes,' Journal d'hygiène populaire 8, no. 7 (Nov. 1891): 205
86. 'Rapport de T.C. Keefer et J.E. Vanier au sujet des améliorations à apporter à l'aqueduc municipal,' Mar. 1894, 27, file 1, 5th series, fonds VM47, Commission de l'aqueduc, DGDA
87. 'Protection des cours d'eau potables / Protection of Water-Courses Which Are Available for Water-Supplies,' Bulletin sanitaire 13, nos. 3-5 (Mar.-May 1913): 23, 29
88. For details on the treatment versus filtration debate in Canada, see Baldwin, 'Les réseaux d'égouts,' 254 onward. On the American context, see Melosi, The Sanitary City, 161-5, 172-4, 247, 248, and 257
89. 'Avis légal des avocats de la Cité de Montréal sur les égouts,' 6 April 1915, 2-3, file 2615, 3rd series, DGDA; 'Lettre du Conseil d'hygiène au Surintendant des égouts de Montréal approuvant la construction d'une fosse temporaire de type Imhoff 14 Apr. 1915
90. Dagenais and Poitras, 'Une ressource abondante et inépuisable?'
91. 'Rapport d'inspection, aqueduc projeté à Dorval,' 7 June 1912, 147, fonds E88, ANQ
92. e siècle,' in L'eau, l'hygiène publique, ed. Pothier, 56
93. 'Pétition adressée à son honneur le maire et à messieurs les échevins de Cartierville,' 19 Aug. 1916, file 2615, 3rd series, DGDA
94. 'Requête d'un propriétaire au président du Conseil exécutif de Montréal,' 21 Aug. 1922, file 2615, 3rd series, DGDA
95. 'Requête de propriétaires, de locataires et de résidents temporaires à la Corporation de Cartierville,' 21 Aug. 1916, file 2615, 3rd series, DGDA
96. Michèle Dagenais and Claire Poitras, 'Water, Power, and Environmental Controversies in the Montreal Metropolitan Area: The Case of the Rivière-des-Prairies Hydroelectric Power Plant in the 1920s and 1930s' (Second Biennial Urban History Conference, University of Wisconsin, 7-10 Oct. 2004)
97. See, in particular, ordinance 1510 (10 Mar. 1930 and 22 Dec. 1930), as well as the 'Lettre du Service Provincial d'hygiène au greffier de Montréal,' 14 Sept. 1933, in files 47,152 and 50,607, 3rd series, Dossiers de résolution du Conseil, DGDA
98. 'Recommandation de l'ingénieur Lafrenière au directeur du Service provincial d'hygiène pour la construction d'une usine d'épuration à Montréal,' 13 Sept. 1933, 425-7, vol. 42, Service provincial d'hygiène, Secrétariat de la province, fonds E4, ANQ
99. During the Depression, the city did create a commission of engineers comprising Paul Béique, W.S. Lea, and J.M. Robertson, in order to evaluate the urgency of complying with the Health Board's rulings, and to investigate measures taken in other cities. 'Rapport concernant le projet d'installation d'une usine d'épuration pour les eaux d'égouts qui se déversent dans la rivière des Prairies,' 25 Mar. 1936, file 47,152, 3rd series, DGDA
100. 'Requête des citoyens et électeurs du quartier Ahuntsic de la Cité de Montréal, des municipalités de Montréal-Nord et de la Rivière des Prairies,' 2 Nov. 1937, file 50,607, 3rd series, DGDA
101. 'Régie des services publics, ordonnance no. 493,' 30 Apr. 1942, 11, file 47152, 3rd series, DGDA. Montreal would equip itself with a treatment plant for all of the island's waste water during the 1970s. Dagenais and Poitras, 'Une ressource abondante et inépuisable?'
102. As Harold Platt observes, 'The movement of information and people across the Atlantic in both directions made the search for improved methods of biological treatment and disposal of sewage truly international.' Shock Cities, 439
103. Christopher Hamlin thus concludes,'What science contributed was confidence ... In the context of policy-making, science therefore served as a symbolic technology, a tool useful in securing a social end of taking a technical action with respect to the provision of water.' A Science of Impurity, 302
104. Hamlin, 'Nuisance Inspection,' 200
105. Bruce Curtis has made a similar argument, but in a different context - that of the cholera threat of 1866. 'Social Investment,' 348
106. 'La fièvre typhoïde en été /Typhoid fever in summer,' Bulletin sanitaire 26, no. 3 (Mar. 1926): 92
107. 'L'hygiène dans les camps de touristes / Tourist Camps Sanitation,' Bulletin sanitaire 30, no. 2 (Feb. 1930): 57