Water History

A century of red water: mine waste, legacy contamination, and institutional amnesia in Minnesota’s Mesabi Iron Range Abstract Beginning in 1910, new technologies for mining and processing low-grade iron ore created novel environmental challenges for Minnesota’s iron mining communities. Unlike earlier high-grade iron ore which required little processing before shipping, low-grade iron ore required extensive processing near mining sites, and that processing created vast quantities of finely-ground tailings that mobilized into nearby streams, lakes, and communities. In Lake Superior’s Mesabi Range, low-grade iron ores brought significant economic benefits, but they were coupled with equally significant environmental transformations. Drawing on archival records from the first legal case in Minnesota over the pollution of surface waters from migrating mine waste, this paper asks: how did communities in the Mesabi Range respond to the new environmental challenges from low-grade iron ore? How did these negotiations between Mesabi communities, mining companies and the state play out in the courts? How did these court battles shape state mining policy? How have local heritage organizations and state agencies remembered and memorialized these environmental legacies?

Editorial issue 2/3 2018

Living side by side: the water environment, technological control and urban culture in the Russian and Western history

Running water for the officials, rainwater for the poor: symbolic use and control of water in early modern Ottoman Crete Abstract This paper deals with the issue of water management on the island of Crete from the beginning of the Ottoman–Venetian war in 1645 to the beginning of its Egyptian administration in 1830. Based primarily on information given by Kandiye’s (mod. Herakleion) Shariah court records, but also on a variety of published and unpublished archival material from Turkey, Greece, and France, it explores the socioeconomic aspects of water-resource exploitation in the island’s urban centers, analyzes the involvement of various local and imperial actors in water management, and locates the struggles created in the above-mentioned processes. Through a detailed analysis of the challenges faced by the administration and the population of an insular area with limited water resources, such as Crete, the article tries to take a fresh look at water management on the Ottoman periphery: It redirects the researchers’ focus from heavily-populated cities and large cultivated plains to the examination of smaller regions with no major hydraulic and irrigation networks and puts emphasis on the symbolic use of water in the socioeconomic context of the Ottoman Empire.

Modelling the freshwater supply of cisterns in ancient Greece Abstract In this paper, we model the function of rainwater harvesting cisterns in ancient Greece. The model calculates on a monthly basis: (1) the collected and stored volume of water; (2) the amount of water extracted for individual use; and (3) the potential accumulated surplus available by the end of a month. The potential of the model is explored through two case studies based on material from Olynthos in Thessaly and Dystos on ancient Euboia by running 26 consecutive annual cycles utilizing modern precipitation data from meteorological stations as a proxy for ancient precipitation and precipitation variability. Our results show that cisterns can provide ample amounts of freshwater to households and function as buffers for water stress in shorter (monthly), and longer terms (seasonally, yearly and between years). The two cisterns in this paper yield between 10.7 and 86.6 m3 per annum with a strong variability in collected water volumes within and between years. Yet, this variability is, largely predictable and thus the use of cisterns in ancient Greece should be viewed in the light of predictable variability that required active participation from members of the household to be efficient.

Industrial waste, river pollution and water politics in Central Russia, 1880–1917 Abstract The article explores how Russia’s governmental authorities, scientists, engineers, and industrialists engaged with the problem of factory waste and water pollution. It argues that industrial pollution of rivers emerged as a subject of considerable public debate in Russia in the 1880s and the enforcement of water protection laws grew stricter towards the end of the Empire. However, the vagueness of the legislation and the lack of clear quality standards opened the way for contingency and arbitrariness in the persecution of violators. This persecution did not lead to the reduction of pollution in the imperial period, but it raised awareness of the dangers of industrial discharge for riverine environments.

Management of the lagoon and urban environment in 18th-century Venice Abstract The aim of the essay is to look at the water management in this amphibious city par excellence at the interaction of the “science of water” with different aspects. We have taken in consideration the importance of the river basins, of woodlands, of meteorology, of the measurement of rainfall, of the atmospheric pressure and humidity. Further Venice had long been growing aware of environmental issues such as air quality, public hygiene and the collection/disposal of waste products, regulations regarding burials, the location of harmful industries and measures intended to protect citizens. But the Republic that existed thanks to maritime trade had to look for the water supplies that were essential to its urban and demographical expansion. Indeed, as Marin Sanudo underlined “Venice is in the water but has no water”. Those measures hinged upon the collection of rainwater in “Venetian wells”, though that source of supply was soon being supplemented with fresh water drawn from the river Brenta. No less complex was the continual battle the city had to wage in order to defend itself against water—a struggle which had to be fought on different fronts. From one side it had been necessary to exclude the major rivers outside the Venetian basin. From the other it was crucial to maintain the canals within the city free from alluvial silt. No less important was to provide defence against the sea itself. An additional issue in this matter was that the energy crisis within the city led to wood (potential fuel) increasingly being replaced by stone (as was the case with the Murazzi sea barriers put up at the end of the 18th century).

Versailles facing the degradation of its water supply from the Seine River: governance, water quality expertise and decision making, 1852–1894 Abstract In 1852 a new machine to provide greater volumes of Seine River water to Versailles was decided. The new Marly Machine was operated by the Versailles Water Service (VWS), a 150-year old state-owned institution supervised by state ministries, managing the water supply over a vast domain that covered 32 towns in 1903. The VWS provided financial, technical and administrative resources to the city of Versailles, but the city council had no word in decision-making. Soon after the installation of the Machine in 1859, the city of Paris started to collect its wastewaters and discharge them untreated into the river, 16 km upstream of the Marly Machine. In 1874 the Seine River was officially declared infected by Paris sewers. The VWS reacted in 1877 by asking several French chemists, pioneers of river surveys, to assess the quality of the Versailles waters by innovative chemical approaches that had been developed on the Seine River since the Boudet ammonia river profile in 1861. In 1874 Gérardin’s oximetric profiles revealed the severe depletion of oxygen in the Seine at Marly in the summer, explaining the fish kills. This degradation of Versailles water intake in the Seine River mobilized local, regional and national actors over the coming 20 years. Finally, the VWS was forced to gradually use (1880–1895) groundwater to supply the Marly Machine. In 1892, another new water quality criterion was considered, the bacteriological survey, and in 1894 the Seine River water was completely excluded as a water source, ending a multidecadal debate in which scientific expertise played a prominent role.

The management of cholera epidemics and the Neva River in St. Petersburg in the nineteenth century Abstract Cholera first broke out in St. Petersburg in 1831, becoming a frequent visitor thereafter. Considering the frequency of its visit, it is worth trying to understand what the epidemic represented and became for residence of the capital. The complexity of water pipe and pollution control facilities in the city is one of the important components that story.

Between water pollution and protection in the Soviet Union, mid-1950s–1960s: Lake Baikal and River Vuoksi Abstract This article examines the discourses on water pollution and protection in the Soviet Union in the 1950s–1960s. It explores discursive practices related to two paper and pulp plants, one located on the shore of Lake Baikal and another production unit in Svetogorsk on the border with Finland. These two discourses provide deep insight to pro-industry and nature protection positions, which characterized Soviet water pollution and protection discourses in the 1950s–1960s. The paper contends that discussions about pulp production near Baikal influenced other regions to improve the engineering of water treatment facilities. The development of such facilities became a compromise between supporters and defenders of increasing pulp production, but did not result in solving the problem of water pollution. In analyzing this issue, I consider discussions around the Baikal pulp plant and the first attempts to introduce advanced water treatment in an industrial city of Svetogorsk and beyond. I will also discuss contacts with the West, in particular with Finland, and their effects on Soviet water management.