125 years ago L.A.'s first outfall sewer system was completed

125 years ago, on March 9, 1894, the City of Los Angeles opened its "great drain," according to the March 10, 1894 Los Angeles Herald. This historical event is interesting to look back upon due to the current news that L.A. is on track to recycle 100 percent of its wastewater by 2035--141 years after the outfall sewer came online. The required improvements at Hyperion will cost $2 billion over the next 16 years.

Los Angeles Herald, March 10, 1894

The 1894 Los Angeles Herald was not shy in expressing its enthusiasm for the new city outfall sewer: "A triumph of modern sanitary engineering on a colossal scale," it wrote,

"typifies the progressiveness of the Queen city of Southern California, in adopting the most advanced ideas of municipal politico-economy of the cities of the old world, Paris, Berlin, and Vienna, in not only removing its sewage from the center of population but also in utilizing this unequaled fertilizer in developing and expanding the value of its outlying suburban tracts. In this particular, Los Angeles city outfall sewer is the pioneer in the new world."

"The long stretches of green fields and rolling hills that lie like an emerald zone between the stately homes of Southern Los Angeles will soon blossom in all the glory and beauty of sub-tropical efflorescence, under the benign and stimulating influences of rich and generous irrigation matter."

It cost around $385,000 to build the 12.5-mile redwood drainway, including two siphons and six-foot diameter brick-lined tunnels. Blow-off pipes and irrigating hydrants were expected to be of "immense utility in irrigating the surrounding territory." At the "outskirts of the future great city of Inglewood," the Herald noted,

"the sewage can be distributed over a magnificent bench of 15,000 acres, that heretofore only lacked the fructifying influences which the sewage water will supply to make it one of the most fertile and productive sections in all Southern California."

This was expected to be a large source of revenue for the city. From Inglewood, the sewer went in a straight line out to the bed of the ocean.

Engineer Dockweiler noted that the sewer would serve a city of 132,000 people, and that the tunnels had room for a second conduit that would expand the capacity to serve 265,000 people. He went on to say

"Most cities waste their sewage, but Los Angeles will find it an increasing source of income as a fertilizer, and at the same time uphold the standard of Southern California, that not a drop of water shall go to waste as long as there is a necessity and demand for the same."

City Council President Teed suggested that

"...now the outfall sewer was completed, every citizen should take an interest in the construction of intercepting sewers within the city limits, and advocate their immediate connection with the main sewer. When this was done Los Angeles would be the best sewered city in America."

In 1894, the dignitaries at the opening of the outfall sewer were clearly proud of the progressiveness of Los Angeles. Today, in 2019, Angelenos can continue to be proud of their city's progressive wastewater management.