Monday, January 26, 2004
A complaint four years ago targeted sewage discharge into Bear Run.
MILL RUN, Pa. (AP) -- Four years after the state complained to its owners about fouling a nearby creek, Fallingwater has a sewage system befitting the American architectural masterpiece.
The $3 million system not only handles waste from 140,000 annual visitors to the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed home, but is a model for how sewerage should be designed in the state's purest watersheds.
"This project shows you can have economic development activity in the state's most protected watersheds," said Larry Schweiger, president of the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy, which has owned the home since 1963.
Four years ago, the state Department of Environmental Protection filed a complaint about sewage discharges into Bear Run. The secluded, rocky creek produces the waterfall next to the home Wright originally designed for department store magnate Edgar J. Kaufmann.
But two years before that, the conservancy realized the old system -- using septic tanks and composting toilets -- was failing. CH2M Hill, an engineering firm hired to find a solution, suggested a centralized sewage system.
About the system
The new system doesn't discharge any treated sewage into Bear Run, which the conservancy requested be designated by the state as an "Exceptional Value stream." The moniker is given to rivers that are biologically healthy and have excellent water quality.
Instead, the system of 2.5 miles of pipe, nine pumps and a microfiltration process turns wastewater from sinks and toilets into sludge, which is hauled away and landfilled, and treated wastewater.
That wastewater is recycled to operate the toilets in the guest pavilion and irrigate a garden and a small forest plot near the house, which is about 70 miles southeast of Pittsburgh.
Toilets in Fallingwater itself still use tap water, because extra piping would have had to be added to the home -- a step not taken because of the home's architectural standing.
"We had a notion that we could use 21st-century technology and should be a model for good stewardship since the conservancy requested that Bear Run be designated as an Exceptional Value stream," Schweiger said.
The new system began operating in October and was installed over two years in a way to cause minimal disruption.
"We worked at night and in the off season in public areas," said Karen Speer, project manager for CH2M Hill. "It's the most unique site I've worked on in 20 years of designing treatment plants and the only project that my husband wanted to come visit."
XFor more information, visit www.wpconline.org/fallingwaterhome on the Web.