Holló Szilvia Andrea: Budapest's Public Works - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2010)
Developing utilities on doctor's orders
walls were give a facing of cement mortar and in places even concrete was used. The rectangular shape was replaced by a circular or an oval cross-section, which impeded the flow of the sewage to a lesser degree. The first official figures concerning the length of Buda's and Pest's sewage systems dates from the i86os, when one third of the altogether 80 kilometre network was to be found on the left, the remaining two thirds on the right bank of the Danube. The sewers of gradually growing diameters reached the river in a radial pattern in such a way that 14 longer or shorter sections of the sewers had their points of discharge between today's Jászai Mari tér and Boráros tér. However, the Danube pushed sewage back into the system up to about two thirds of the city's area even at medium water levels, and the overflow seeped through the porous brick walls contaminating the subsoil levels, and the flat gradients at which the sewers were laid caused sludge deposition. At high water levels the outfall points were stopped with straw, manure or iron slabs, and the sewer contents were pumped into the Danube. The method prevented Pest from being deluded, but Buda was inundated with water overflowing from the sewer system. After the installation of the first waterworks of Pest, the modernisation of the sewer system became urgent. Several renowned English professionals undertook to solve similar problems all over continental Europe, and in Pest, too, it was a businessman from England who offered to build a network of trunk mains in a document called "Report and Blueprint re the improvement oh the subsurface sewer system in the chartered royal city oh Pest. Submitted by Chieh Civil engineer oh London W. J. Bazalgette on instructions issued by Sir Morton Pető. Pest, in the month oh July, 1869.” The renowned British expert had studied the existing system, and seeing that Pest lies in a spacious truncated basin surrounded by hills sloping toward the Danube, he recommended a combined sewer system collecting sanitary sewage and stormwater runoff in one and the same pipe. The same method had been implemented in several large cities of Europe (such as London, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Berlin and Munich). Joseph Bazalgette, the builder of London’s comprehensive system of underground mains, wanted to dispense with sewers emptying their contents directly into the Danube. For that purpose, he proposed to build two transverse trunk mains, one running from north to south, the other from north-east to south-west and both intersecting with the existing main sewers; the two tunnels were then to be joined near the riverbank from where their contents were to be pumped into the Danube. The implementation of the plan cost a staggering amount relative to the city's budget. Despite the expenses involved, work on the project could not be postponed due to the regular outbreaks of frequently lethal cholera epidemics. 67
