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Since Houston’s founding in 1836, Buffalo Bayou had been used for transportation, drinking water, and waste disposal. By the end of the century, waste flowing into the bayou was beginning to cause a problem. Local citizens complained, but their complaints went unheard. Then the city was warned that the federal government would not clean the sewage from Buffalo Bayou, and if the federal government was to continue funding completion of the Houston Ship Channel, the city must take action to clean up the bayou. So Houston built its first wastewater treatment facility.
Alexander Potter was hired to design the system in 1902. Two structures, both in Romanesque Revival style with dark red brick, were built along White Oak Bayou. The upper building was a storage building, built along San Jacinto Street (then Willow Street). A steep (45 degree!) staircase leads down the bank of the bayou to the pump house, built right into the steep slope.
Because of Houston’s frequent torrential downpours, the system Potter designed carried sewage through small clay pipes and storm water in separate, larger pipes. This was different from most cities, where rain water would flow into the sewage pipes. At the pump house, effluent was pumped through a filtration system with three layers. The first layer consisted of 4 inches of gravel; the second layer was 6 inches of broken stone; and the third layer was coke. The pumps were powered by boilers. From the Willow Street Station, the treated effluent was pumped another 1½ miles downstream to another filtration bed located at Clinton and McCarty.
In 1914, not part of Potter’s original design, an incinerator was added to the complex. The incinerator, adjacent to the storage building, burnt solid refuse (garbage). In 1930, to improve the efficiency of the pumps, a grit chamber was built along the banks of the bayou below the pump house. The grit chamber regulated the bayou water flow into the pump house, and filtered out large pieces of debris, with a series of valves, troughs, and iron gates.
After years of neglect, the University of Houston Downtown has leased the waterworks complex. The storage building and incinerator have been renovated. The area around the pump house and the grit chamber, both of which are regularly flooded by White Oak Bayou, has been cleaned. Three of the original pumps remain in the pump house. The University plans further renovations to create a historical exhibit around the pump house.
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