Water system history
About Nashville Water's beginnings
Nashville’s water system has a long and interesting history. The first settlers of Nashville chose the Fort Nashboro site because of the availability of pure water from a spring at that location. By 1826, water was being pumped from the Fort Nashboro spring to a public square reservoir through a water main crafted from hollowed locust and cedar logs.
After a fire destroyed the first water facilities in 1829, a new system was built in the Rolling Mill Hill area east of downtown. This new system, completed in 1833, satisfied the area’s needs until the population increased at the time of the Civil War. With the support of the community and the Nashville Academy of Medicine, the George Reyer Pumping Station (located on Omohundro Drive) and the Eighth Avenue Reservoir were built in 1889. Both the pumping station, powered by steam until 1953, and the Eighth Avenue Reservoir are still in operation today and are included in the National Registry of Historical Places. A water fi ltration plant was completed at Omohundro Drive in 1929. The K.R. Harrington Water Treatment Plant, located on Heartland Drive in Donelson, joined the Omohundro Treatment Plant in supplying safe, clean water to the Nashville area in 1978.
View additional history of Nashville Water's beginnings (PDF)
The history of the Nashville Sewerage System
Beginning in 1823, brick and clay sewers were constructed and conveyed both stormwater and sanitary sewage for discharge into the Cumberland River. Some of these sewers were constructed directly in Nashville’s streams. In more rural areas, outhouses gradually gave way to septic tanks as the primary method of disposal for sanitary waste.
By 1950, as Davidson County’s total population grew to more than 300,000, the discharge of untreated waste and failure of septic systems represented a significant threat to the environment and a challenge for a growing community. The sewer system had evolved to nearly 400 miles of sanitary sewer lines that emptied into a network of combined sewers, which discharged directly into streams and the river. The need was recognized for a system that would capture and treat the sewage.
The Central Wastewater Treatment Plant was built just north of downtown and began operation in 1958. As Nashville and Davidson County continued to grow, so did its wastewater system. The Dry Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant was built in the Rivergate area and began operation in 1961. The Whites Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant in West Nashville was placed in service in 1975.
The 1980s marked the beginning of an aggressive sewer expansion program to help eliminate more septic systems in Davidson County. Even with three treatment plants, this aggressive expansion resulted in a need for additional improvements to control overflows that resulted from the amount of excess water entering the sewer system during rain events.
The Overflow Abatement Program, launched in 1990, was an aggressive program designed to upgrade pumping stations and treatment plant capacities, repair leaking sewers and address combined sewer overflow impacts. Nashville has spent more than $700 million on overflow abatement projects and has made tremendous progress toward improving water quality in the Cumberland River watershed.
If you have any questions which are not addressed through this web site, please email sonia.harvat@nashville.gov.