George W. Fuller

George Warren Fuller
George W. Fuller in 1917
Born	(1868-12-21)December 21, 1868 Franklin, Massachusetts
Died	June 15, 1934(1934-06-15) (aged 65) New York, New York
Resting place	Evergreen Cemetery, West Medway, Massachusetts
Education	BS, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1890
Occupation	Consulting sanitary engineer
Known for	Pre-eminent sanitary engineer of his time
Awards	Thomas Fitch Rowland Prize, American Society of Civil Engineers, 1903; Water Industry Hall of Fame, American Water Works Association, 1971.

George Warren Fuller (December 21, 1868 – June 15, 1934) was a sanitary engineer who was also trained in bacteriology and chemistry. His career extended from 1890 to 1934 and he was responsible for important innovations in water and wastewater treatment. He designed and built the first modern water filtration plant, and he designed and built the first chlorination system that disinfected a U.S. drinking water supply. In addition, he performed groundbreaking engineering work on sewage treatment facilities in the U.S. He was President of both the American Water Works Association and the American Public Health Association, and he was recognized internationally as an expert civil and sanitary engineer.

George W. Fuller was born in Franklin, Massachusetts in 1868. After his primary and secondary education, he was accepted at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology at the age of 16. He deferred his attendance at MIT for one year (beginning 1886) due to the death of his father. At MIT, he studied under William T. Sedgwick and completed his bachelor's degree in chemistry in 1890. Sedgwick was able to send Fuller to Berlin, Germany to study under the chief engineer for the Berlin waterworks, Carl Piefke. During his stay in Berlin, Fuller studied bacteriology at the Hygiene Institute of the University of Berlin.

After returning from Berlin, Fuller started working at the Lawrence Experiment Station in Lawrence, Massachusetts while still under the tutelage of William T. Sedgwick. While at LES, he investigated the treatment of sewage using filtration systems. His most important work was the study of filtration for potable water treatment. His early investigations were designed to increase the filtration rate for slow sand filters so that water treatment facilities could be built on smaller land footprints and, thus, be constructed more economically.

During the period 1895 to 1897, Fuller was hired by the City of Louisville, Kentucky to study water filtration processes for the purpose of purifying Ohio River water for human consumption. The focus of his investigations were on "mechanical filtration" treatment systems (also called rapid sand filtration), which used filtration rates that were 60 times higher than those of slow sand filters. Aluminum sulfate was added prior to filtration to form larger particles that would be amenable to filtration. The work in Louisville made it clear that except for the clearest upland water supplies, a sedimentation treatment step would have to be added prior to filtration to remove the bulk of the suspended particulate matter.