1891 Typhoid epidemic, Mohawk River
Sewage in the Mohawk and Hudson has long been problematic
Water quality in the Mohawk has long been a concern because a number of communities rely on it for drinking water and recreation. Dumping sewage in the River is never a good idea.
In 1891 William Mason published what may well be the first account of the analysis of pathogen distribution in the River. He was a chemist, engineer, and medical expert who spend his entire career at RPI. He was a pioneer in sanitation chemistry and a major contribution that he made was demonstrating the need for clean municipal water supplies. He founded the department of chemistry and chemical engineering at RPI.
In 1891 he delivered a paper entitled “Notes on some cases of Drinking water and Disease” published in the Journal of the Franklin Institute (a difficult to get paper). At the time Mason was engaged in the analysis of river water and how contaminated drinking water may have contributed to the typhoid outbreak. His paper details the evolution of the outbreak in different river-lining communities, and then the suspected cause.
In April 1891, the Health officer of Schenectady wrote: “The marked increase in typhoid fever began in July 1890 and has just let up. We have had about 300 cases. Doctors have not been particular in reporting them, and we have had some many cases of anomalous fevers, that diagnosis is questionable. Seventy deaths have been reported.” At the time Schenectady had a population of about 20,000, and Mason posits under-reporting by a factor of about 8 to 10 (i.e. he implies that there may have been as many as 3000 cases, which would be about 15% of the population).
Downriver in Cohoes, the epidemic started in October 1890 and ended the following March and during this interval there were about 1000 cases. At the time Cohoes drew its entire water supply from the Mohawk River, and it also returned all its sewage to the River. Other communities did the same. When pathogens in the water were suspected residents were told to boil water. Mason notes that while the Cohoes outbreak was ongoing, the nearby communities of Waterford and Lansingburgh did not have reported cases of Typhoid because they drew water from the Hudson, above the Mohawk confluence.
Below the confluence with the Hudson River, the epidemic started in Albany in December 1890 and continued to March 1891. There were a minimum of 411 cases with 62 deaths, and just like the other communities, the outbreak was attributed to contaminated river water. At the time, Albany drew most of its water from the Hudson, and this water would have mixed with Mohawk river water. Mason indicates that floating buoys in the Hudson downstream of the City were used to show that reverse flow related to tides resulted in a return of Albany sewage that was dumped in the river - an issue that only added to the problem.
Map used in the analysis of the typhoid outbreak of 1890-91 in Schenectady, Cohoes, and Albany. Squares represent the point of water intake for each of these cities, although Albany had several water sources at the time. Polluted water in the Mohawk was inferred to be a primary source of contamination that drove the outbreak (Mason, 1891).
At the time there was controversy and speculation as to the exact role that sewage may play in transmitting diseases. He wrote: “The serious evils lurking in water containing sewage derived from sources of disease, are too well-known to need enlarging on here, and the dangers to be dreaded from the improper disposal of city drainage, is on of the widely talked-of topics of the day.”
If one accepts that pathogens enter the river, there was still disagreement as to the purification of water by natural processes, including oxygenation. In other words, some held that river water cleaned itself, but Mason was skeptical. “My experience with the water of large stream contaminated with city sewage, for instance, the Hudson River, is that self-purification is exceedingly slow.”
“In order to determine whether Troy sewage, entering six miles above {Albany}, was felt at the Albany intake, the river water was first sampled above Troy and then below the Troy sewer outfalls, where no one would hesitate to say that contamination was serious. A difference was noted between the two results which was undoubtedly caused by the influx of the Troy and Mohawk River sewage.”
Although Mason analyzed river water, he notes that “Typhoid germs” have not been found (or seen under a microscope) in the river water. Nonetheless he concluded that give the volume of water taken in by these communities, and the amount of sewage in the river, it was almost certain that the outbreak resulted from contaminated drinking water, and that the contamination was directly related to pathogens in the river. He concludes:
“There are those who hold that this outbreak of typhoid fever is to be explained in some other way then by attributing it to a contaminated water supply, but when we bear in mine that, out of this group so closely situated cities and towns, all of those which used the Mohawk-Hudson water contracted the fever, and that all of those which did not use such water escaped, there is much food for thought.”
In 1920 there was another water contamination crisis in Schenectady inferred to be due to flooding of the shallow intake wells during a spring freshet. This case, outlined by Theodore Horton, Chief Engineer of the NY Department of Health, resulted in widespread gastroenteritis and 53 cases of typhoid, 3 fatal.
Thaw and meltwater drove the river level up 12-15 feet above normal, perhaps due to an ice jam. The municipal water intake pipes were flooded, but pumping continued. Fifteen days after contamination, cases of typhoid were recognized.
Diagram from Horton (1920) that relates the timing of flooding in mid-March to the onset of Typhoid fever in the City of Schenectady. At the time the City drew its water from shallow wells near the River. The dark histogram bars are cases of Typhoid fever.
Today, there is still a concern of sewage entering the River. It seems remarkable that in 2019 we have untreated sewage that occasionally enters the River through leaky pipes and combined sewer overflows - both of which are particularly problematic during big rain events. Since 2015, Riverkeeper has done regular patrols on the on the Mohawk to assess water quality in partnership with faculty and students from SUNY Cobleskill, and SUNY Polytechnic in Utica NY.
Part of the data display from Riverkeeper testing using an EPA approved method for pathogen testing (Enterococcus). Samples in red are above the Beach advisory threshold (61+ MPN per 100 ml), and those in green are below the threshold. These samples were taken on 13 October 2019. Enterococcus is an EPA-approved fecal contamination indicator.
These modern pathogen data, which are regularly posted to the internet, provide one of our only views of pathogens in the River and these data inform ideas about how water quality dramatically decreases with rainfall. The data also tell us where there are chronic problems that need to be fixed.
We’ve come a long way, but we have farther to go.
This and other Notes from a Watershed are available at: https://mohawk.substack.com/
Horton, T., 1920. Outbreak of gastroenteritis and Typhoid fever caused by pollution of public water supply at Schenectady NY. Public Health Records, v. 35, n. 44. p. 2549-2556.
Mason, W.P., 1891. Notes on some cases of drinking water and disease. Journal of the Franklin Institute, v. 132, Issue 5. p. 356-365.