"I am proposing a public-private partnership to advance our arts and humanities, and to celebrate the millennium by saving America's treasures, great and small."
President William Jefferson Clinton,
1998 State of the Union Address
The Hackensack Water Company on Van Buskirk Island in Oradell, NJ, was designated an "Official Project" of Save America's Treasure in December 2000. "Official Projects" are historic places or objects that "define America," and are considered enduring symbols of American tradition of vital importance to the very fabric of our national history.
The Hackensack Water Company site, which operated uninterrupted from 1882 to 1990, is the oldest intact Rapid Sand and Mechanical Filtration Plant and Pumping Station in America. The Pump House contains a 100-year timeline of intact technology which Robert M. Vogel, Curator Emertius of Engineering and Industry of the Smithsonian Institution, has termed "the history of the Industrial Revolution 'steam to electricity' in one building." Mr. Vogel believes that the Hackensack Water Company site has the potential to become "a unique monument to the nation's waterworks industry."
The Rapid Sand Filtration method was an American engineering landmark that paved the way for safe, potable water. Prior to this filtration method, typhoid and cholera were rampant across the country, and citizens were in danger of "death by drinking water." Philadelphians were told that they were drinking literally the "essence of their ancestors," as their water supply came from the river that flowed next to the cemetery from which water drained through the graves and into the river. The New Milford plant of the Hackensack Water Company was a turn-of-the-century model of innovative water purification. At last, water was safe to drink.
Engineers and chemists at the Hackensack Water Company site continued to experiment and advance the technology of water treatment and delivery. The active carbon method of filtration was invented at the site in the 1920s and became a national and international standard for water treatment. The carbon method of filtration solved the prevailing problem of taste in water delivered to homes. Previously, the water tasted of whatever had been floating in the river. With the new carbon method of filtration, the water was not only pure, it tasted pure and clean.
This priceless legacy is even more important now that water is once again becoming a major public policy issue. Droughts, overdevelopment, and overuse of this limited resource are creating problems all across the nation. WWC's proposal for the site includes a Hackensack River Research Center to address the issue of water, its uses and misuses in the 21st century and an environmental Education Center to teach children about our priceless and limited resource, water.
Save America's Treasures is a pubic-private partnership between the National Park Service and the National Trust for Historic Preservation, Dedicated to the preservation and celebration of America's priceless historic legacy.
As Honorary Chair, First Lady Laura Bush leads this effort along with co-chairs Richard Moe, President of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and the noted author, Susan Eisenhower, granddaughter of the late President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Mrs. Bush succeeds former First Lady Hillary Clinton, who continues to support the program as its Founding Chair.
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