Warsaw Water Filters

Lindley's Filters

Warsaw Water Filters, also known as Lindley's Filters (Polish - "Filtry Lindleya") are one of three Warsaw waterworks, located in area of Koszykowa, Krzywickiego, Filtrowa and Raszyńska streets. The waterworks were finished in 1886, built according to William Lindley's design. Since 1973 Warsaw Filters have been present on the antiquities list.

Construction

Warsaw Filters were founded by the Mayor of Warsaw, Russian general Sokrates Starynkiewicz (Russian - Сократ Старинкевич). After his approval in 1881, construction started. The design of William Lindley consisted of River Pump Station and a Filter Station on the left Vistula bank. During the construction, all available technologies were used, while even minor details were made of high-quality resources. Basic materials used while building filters were waterproof bricks, granite and sandstone. The first cleaned water was distributed to Warsaw citizens on 3 July 1886, from filters consisting of a group of slow sand filters, clean water tank, pump depot and a water tower. The design was made by William Lindley, but was supervised and modernised by his son, William Heerlein Lindley.

Waterworks system

At the beginning, the system was divided into:

Upper Town – supplied by water from water tower situated in the Filters area

Lower Town – supplied by water straight from slow sand filters (areas of Powiśle and Praga districts)

Warsaw waterworks system consisted of Filters Station (Filtry Lindleya) and River Pump Station of Central Waterworks Institute, from which water was extracted and transported into Filters Station.

Modernisation

Basically, water was carried from a pump station to slow filters, some chambers of which had the role of tanks processing the sewage (Imhoff tanks). Filtered water was transported to clean water tanks and then to pump depots, where it was pushed up into a water tower, from which the Upper Town waterworks started.

A few years after deploying the filters it was necessary to add Imhoff tanks before the slow filters, as research showed contamination in the water. To implement this, Warsaw Filters was enlarged in area after 1890 and tanks were built.

Growing demand for water in the early 1930s in Warsaw prompted the building of a Rapid Sand Filter Station, which treat the water from four intakes. After implementing the station, water from a pumping station was pressed into expansion vessels, then to rapid filters and slow filters.

In 1931 the chlorination of water was implemented.

The main buildings were massively damaged during the Second World War and much of the filtering equipment was stolen by German soldiers. Reconstruction after the war took several years of work.

From 2008 to 2010 indirect ozoning and carbon active filters station were built. This consists of 3 ozone generators and 18 carbon filter chambers. Modern buildings are designed according to original look of filters. The new station is named "Socrates", after the founder of Warsaw Filters.

As a monument

Warsaw Filters' protection was upgraded three times - in 1973, 2008 and, finally, in 2012, when the whole filters complex became one of Poland's official national Historic Monuments (Pomnik historii), as designated January 18, 2012. Its listing is maintained by the National Heritage Board of Poland.