This year, the American Concrete Pipe Association (ACPA) is celebrating its 100th anniversary by looking back on the role concrete pipe has played in the country's history.
The first documented U.S. use of concrete: on a sanitary sewer in Mohawk, N.Y., in 1842. At least 10 other urban areas followed suit soon after, but after a yellow fever epidemic broke out in Memphis in 1873, killing more than 5000 people, public health officials nationwide began clamoring for increased construction of concrete sanitary sewers. In response, 20 other major cities—viewing concrete-pipe sewers as an effective way of controlling disease and flooding—followed Memphis with systems of their own.
ACPA was founded in 1907 in Ames, Iowa, as the Interstate Cement Tile Manufacturers Association (ICTMA) and was rechristened in 1914.
Today, ACPA partners with its members, highway officials, and researchers to establish materials standards, safety guidelines, and other issues that ensure concrete pipe and boxes continue to provide infrastructure managers with reliable solutions.
The ACPA has opened its membership to professional engineers. For more information, visit www.concrete-pipe.org.
