Los Angeles, CA: Los Angeles Reservoir and Black Shade Balls

(Satellite)

The reservoir is covered with 96,000,000 black balls so that sunlight cannot enter the water. The primary purpose for keeping the sunlight out of the water is to avoid the chemical reaction that turns bromide and chlorine into bromate (BrO3), which is carcinogenic. The water source for this reservoir has naturally occurring bromide.  And since this reservoir hold treated water, chlorine has been added at the filtration plant. The balls have the further advantages of reducing evaporation, controlling algae by stopping photosynthesis and keeping wildlife off the water. The reduction of evaporation saves an estimated 300m gallons of treated water each year.

12:06 video @ 0:48

@ 0:00

This Facebook Reel is a shorter version of the above video.

Darlington, UK: 1849 Tees Cottage Pumping Station

(Satellite)

Street View, Jun 2025

Facebook Reel

TeesCottage_beam
"The original 1849 Beam Engine ran until 1907, when it was replaced by a small Gas Engine. The Beam Engine which you can see today was installed in 1904 and, as one of the last Beam Engines built, represented the pinnacle of Beam Engine technology.
"It is a Woolf compound rotative Beam Engine of 140 indicated horsepower (IHP) which can run between 9 and 16 revolutions per minute. During its working life, supplying the town, it will have averaged about 12 rpm giving a total of 140 million revolutions. At that speed it would deliver 1900 gallons (8640 litres) of river water into the filters and 1700 gallons (7730 litres or 21 standard bath tubs) into the town every minute. The cast iron beam is 30 feet 3 inches (9.2 metres) long and weighs 25 tons. 
"The flywheel is also made of cast iron and is 21 feet (6.4 metres) in diameter and weighs 14.5 tons."

Joanne Storey, Sep 2021

TeesCottage_about
"In 1849 Tees Cottage Pumping Station revolutionised the water supply to Darlington by offering cleaner, piped water to homes and businesses which had previously relied on contaminated ground wells, polluted rivers, and rainwater tubs. In 1851, recognising the health benefits of a clean water supply, the customer base was extended to also supply Stockton, Middlesbrough and Yarm.
"Our 1904 Beam Engine still pumps water using steam raised in its original coal-fired 1902 Lancashire boilers. Alongside it, our 1914 Gas Engine remains one of the largest preserved historic gas engines still in its original location — and it, too, can still pump water. We also have our 1926 Electric Pumps, these don't run anymore but are preserved in situ and cosmetically restored - making Tees Cottage one of the only pumping station museums able to display and preserve all three historic methods of water pumping: steam, internal combustion, and electricity."

This shows how the cranks are out-of-phase by 120 degrees . Do they have a triple expansion steam pump as well as a beam engine?

Facebook Reel

Mark Gund: 1927 Pistil and Stamen Aster Blaster, very rare!

[Some comments indicate that it can pump at 7rpm.]

Baltimore, MD: 1912 Eastern Avenue Sewage Pumping Station

(Satellite)

The building still has its smokestack.

Street View, Jun 2011

Street View, Sepo 2023

Part of it is now a public works museum.

Street View, Jun 2019

Back when it received coal from barges.

Image via pwexperience

Matt Finlay, Oct 2019

pwexperience

pwexperience

Facebook Reel

Louisville, KY: 1891 Sewer Explosion

(Satellite, one of the many craters in the streets caused by the explosions.)

Fortunately, it happened at 5:15am and no one was killed and only four were injured.

Rachael Healy posted

Charlie Cox: Tylenol leak from storage tanks overfill ignited by car with dragging exhaust pipe running over a man hole on Hill Street.

Becky Shultz: Does anyone remember the smell emitted by the dog food plant?? It was awful.

[I skipped this comment until I learned it was actually hexane from a Ralston-Purina soybean processing plant.]

That was the route we took to school each morning. Luckily, we were running late that morning. 😬

Several comments on Rachael's post implied that it was Hill Street that blew up. (Later, I learned that multiple streets and 13 miles of sewers blew up.) Why would Google Maps identify an alley instead of the real Hill Street?

Satellite

reddit, also courier journal gallery, photo by Bill Luster
Aftermath of the 1981 Louisville Sewer Explosions, an industrial accident that destroyed several blocks of city streets and 13 miles of sewer pipelines [990x1320]

calebs_dad: Ralston-Purina ran a factory near Louisville, Kentucky that used the industrial solvent hexane to extract oil from soybean mash. In February 1981, the hexane recycling system broke down, causing it to overflow into a containment basin, and eventually into the city sewers. Hexane evaporates easily, and the explosive gas quickly filled the sewer system. A spark from a car set off massive explosions that destroyed blocks of Hill Street downtown, leaving craters as deep as 38 feet. Manhole covers blew off and even residential bathrooms exploded. Amazingly, no serious injuries were reported, but the damage took over a year to repair.

Ralston-Purina eventually paid over $26 million in damages to the city and private parties. On the other hand, the factory was rebuilt with $2 million in municipal bonds.

[It happened at 5:15am in Feb 1981 on Friday the 13th.]

whas11
"It would take more than a year to fix the sewer lines and even longer to repair the streets...The Ralston-Purina Plant was demolished in 2014 after paying out millions of dollars to residents, MSD, the city and government agencies." The spillage was estimated to be 18,000 gallons of hexane.

courier-journal, by Jebb Harris / CJ, from a gallery of many photos
"Workers did repair work on Hill Street between 10th and 11th streets yesterday. Two women were injured when the car in the foreground was tossed during the explosions. Feb. 15, 1981"

"The blasts travelled through the sewer lines, sending manhole covers flying, converting streets into craters and trenches, and sending fountains of sewage up through the streets or straight up through the destroyed toilets of area residents. Two miles of sewer lines were blown to bits, thousands of people lost access to both sewer and water, and much of Hill Street collapsed into the hole left by the 12-foot sewer main." [VancouverIsAwesome]

Ralston-Purina started processing soybeans in 1930. By 1960 ,it had nine soybean crushing plants. "In 1958 Ralston started its first plant making soy protein isolates, in Louisville, Kentucky; only industrial-grade isolates, used mostly for paper coatings, were produced. The production of food-grade isolates was started in 1960." [soyinfocenter]

I spent some time trying to find the plant with Steet View and Google Earth, but I had to give up. I'd think a plant with silos would have been easier to find.

Rachael Healy posted 14 photos with the comment: "Sewer blast."

[I recognize that these photos are from courier journal gallery. Go to that webpage to see the captions.]

1

2

Roger Dale Burden: This car belonged to a friend that I worked with at American Standard

Funny thing is he had just bought it a week before this happened,

3

4

5

6

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8

9

10

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Cincinnati, OH: 1878-1960s Eden Park Reservoir and Pump Station #7

Western Basin: (Satellite)

Eastern Basin: (Satellite)

Pump Station #7: (Satellite)

The structure in the middle was a wall that separated the reservoir into an East and West Basin.

𝗥𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿 𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗻: 𝗣𝗲𝗻𝗻𝘀𝘆𝗹𝘃𝗮𝗻𝗶𝗮 and Ohio posted
Eden Park Reservoir ~ Bakers Pass ~ Cincinnati Ohio circa 1911!

Carol Underwood: The first pic I've seen with water in the reservoir.

Mike Beresford: Carol Underwood Really!?

Actually (now) it’s just a “mirror” covering the actual reservoir.

The covering was placed to protect the water from a threat of possible poison.

(I don’t remember if it was WWI or WWII)

SeeingTheWoods, Image courtesy of The New York Public Library.
Nicholas Longworth used the hilltop for a vineyard, and he was "the first commercially successful winemaker in the United States, and thus the “Father of American Wine.”" The city bought the land to create a water reservoir.

Some of the East Basin wall is still visible.

Street View, Jun 2024

The smokestack near the right of the above view is how I found the pump station.

Joshua & Sarah Lee, May 2025

4:23 video @ 1:17
Suicide Victims to Wrecked Cars Found in Historic Eden Park Reservoir, Cincinnati, Ohio

 Google's AI results claim that this standpipe remains, but I could not find it.

@ 1:28

Each year, one of the two basins would be emptied and cleaned. After a cleaning, the basin would be used for a while as an arena of orchestra performances. [HistoryInYourOwnBackyard]

wcpo

Twin Lakes used to be a limestone quarry. [SeeingTheWoods]

Satellite

Is that the smokestack of the pump station to the right of the church steeple on the left?

Northern Kentucky News posted
Cincinnati riverfront in early 1900s. Note the absence of trees on Mount Adams.

René Micheo commented on the above post

1911 Pump House and 1922 Event Space/Filtration Building in Dallas, TX

Pump: (Satellite)

Filter: (Satellite)

Dallas built the White Rock Dam in 1911 to increase their water supply. As part of that project, they built the coal-fired, renaissance revival pump house at the edge of the dam.

Allen Hare, May 2018

In 1923, they added the filtration building. I'm glad to see that they have preserved the smokestack as well as the buildings.

Street View, Feb 2020

"White Rock Lake construction began in 1910 when Dallas was experiencing water shortages. The dam and coal-fired pump house, built on White Rock Creek, was completed in 1911. The creek initially ran through undeveloped countryside and farmland and the spring-fed water was pure enough to drink. 

The lake filled rapidly and the pure water was pumped directly into city water mains with no filtration or chlorination. It didn’t take long for Dallas citizenry to discover and enjoy the recreational benefits of the newly completed oasis. Human contact; swimming, fishing, duck hunting and even construction of weekend shacks on stilts over the lake were permitted and negatively influenced water quality. 

In about 1915, notices began appearing in the Dallas Morning News advising East Dallas residents to boil their tap water before drinking or cooking with it! The Filter Building and Sedimentation Basins were then constructed in 1922." [TheFilterBuilding]

The filtration building has a new life as an event space.

K O'Donnell, Dec 2024

The machinery has been removed from the buildings, but I noticed that they preserved one of the pumps.

Poovalagan Jagadeeswaran, Apr 2024

Cincinnati, OH: 1906 Triple Steam Pump Station and Water Intake

Pump Station: (Satellite)

Intake: (Satellite)

Photo, Oct 2017

CincinnatiTripleSteam
"Weighing in at 1,400 tons these [four] 104 feet [31.7m] high triple expansion crank and flywheel water pumping steam engines are the largest ever built. At 1,000 HP they are not the most powerful as smaller engines with larger horsepower were used at Main Station in Cincinnati and elsewhere in the world."

CincinnatiTripleSteam_river_station
It had a designed capacity of 30m gallons per day, and it was tested at 30,878,124gpd.
It was 1,000 horsepower and used 150psi with two reheaters.

We can tell by the piston sizes at the top that the high, middle and low pressure cylinders are right to left in this animation. Each piston running its own pump makes sense because that allows three pumps to operate 120 degrees out of phase with each other. This would provide an almost smooth output of water.

3:30 video @ 1:56

The pump house was built on the far eastern side of Cincinnati with the intake on the Kentucky side of the river because that was the lowest point in the river in the region. That helped keep the intake underwater when the river level got low. At times, one could walk across the river before the dams were built.

Jully Alison posted
1906 photo of the newly completed intake building which sits atop a hand-dug tunnel that sent gravity-fed water under the Ohio to CWW's River Station pump house in the background. It was then treated and supplied to the entire city via four of the largest coal-fired steam pump engines in the world each standing 104 feet tall. I had the privilege of checking them out today [Sep 6, 2025] and they are mighty....
[The tours are open to the public.]