Asset Management and Iron Pipe: It's What Boston Is Built On

摘要

There was a time, going back to Boston's founding in 1620, when its residents relied on wells, rain barrels, and a spring on Boston Common for their water. An upgrade of sorts came in 1795 when a delivery system was developed to carry water through wooden pipes to Boston from nearby Jamaica Pond. The Boston Water and Sewer Commission (BWSC) points to 1848 as the year when the city's first modern water system was begun, using a large new reservoir and a few miles of cast-iron pipe as its foundation. Continuing to count on the strength and longevity of iron pipe, the BWSC system now serves more than 1 million people daily. The BWSC water distribution system has 1,012 miles of pipe, and 995 of that is either cast iron or ductile iron (Figure 1).