Rudolph Hering

Rudolph Hering (* 1847 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, † 1923) is considered the founder of modern environmental technology. His creations include the water supply and sewerage systems a number of U.S. cities. His father was the physician Constantine Hering, his grandfather, the composer Carl Gottlieb Hering.

Curriculum vitae

Rudolph Hering was thirteen years old sent to Dresden to go to school and study at the Polytechnic, where he joined the connection Polyhymnia, in 1927 renamed to Old Saxony Corps. Returned to the U.S., he first worked scientifically in Prospect Park in Brooklyn and in Fairmount Park in Philadelphia. In 1872 he was commissioned to survey the Yellowstone National Park. In 1888 the appointment as Consulting Engineer for the public works of New York followed. In 1897 he became director of the American Society of Civil Engineers and 1913 president of the American Public Health Association of the United States. He was responsible for the water supply and sewerage systems for the cities of New York, Chicago, Washington, Philadelphia and San Francisco.

In the case of Chicago, the problem was that the wastewater, which were passed over the Chicago River into Lake Michigan, Located on the shores of Lake City heavily loaded and led to epidemics and over again. However, the watershed between the basin of the Great Lakes and the Mississippi basin was only about 20 miles from Chicago, with a relative height of a few meters. One about fifty kilometer long canal was built to re- embed the Chicago River and to overcome the watershed 1887-1900 on herring proposal. This created not only a shipping route towards Mississippi ( the Illinois Waterway ), it was also the river reversed so that the city's sewage no longer arrived in the future in the lake.

Honor

• Since 1924, the American Society of Civil Engineers gives the golden " Rudolph Hering Medal" for outstanding engineering achievements in environmental engineering.
• 1930 him a lake in Yellowstone National Park is named by the United States Board on Geographic Names in Heringlake honor.
• 1979 Start in the "Hall of Fame " of the American Water Works Association