Imbe Water Purification Plant Water Conduit and Discharge Well

A Channel and a Round Well

Imbe Water Purification Plant Water Conduit and Discharge Well (忌部浄水場導水溝及び放水井) is a concrete channel and well at the Imbe water treatment plant in Higashi-Imbe-cho, Matsue City, Shimane Prefecture, with parts dating from 1918 and 1929, registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property of Japan on 18 April 2008. Its job is to share raw water evenly among the filter beds lined up to the east.

There are two elements. The conduit is a straight channel 60 metres long and 1.2 metres wide, running east to west. The discharge well is circular, with a radius of 1.8 metres and an area of 17 square metres. The conduit continues on from the receiving well and connects to the discharge well. Three small girder bridges span the channel.

Filter bed No. 3 lies just north of the discharge well. Linking the receiving well at the western edge to the discharge well in one continuous run, the structure moves raw water smoothly toward the beds.

Why It Has Two Dates

The Imbe Water Purification Plant Water Conduit and Discharge Well carries two dates because it was not built all at once. According to the Agency for Cultural Affairs, the discharge well belongs to the original 1918 works and the conduit was connected to it.

The Imbe plant opened with four filter beds, Nos. 3 to 6. The first expansion, approved in 1927, added Nos. 1 and 2 on the western side along with a new receiving well. With the intake moved west and six beds to supply instead of four, the channels linking them had to be rearranged. What survives looks like the result: the Taishō-era well kept in use, with a straight Shōwa-era channel run east from the new intake.

The registration criterion is contribution to the historic landscape of the country. Rather than replacing old parts at each expansion, Matsue's engineers added to them, and that habit is visible within this single listing.

What to Notice

The first thing you see is the line of the channel itself, dead straight for 60 metres. At 1.2 metres wide it looks slight beside the broad filter beds, yet it is the first path the water takes inside the plant and it fixes the axis of the site.

Look for the three girder bridges. They are modest concrete spans set at intervals across the narrow channel, breaking its long line into measured lengths.

The round discharge well is the only curve in an otherwise rigid layout. It is the part that survives from 1918 and marks the joint between the Taishō and Shōwa works.

Visiting

The Imbe Water Purification Plant Water Conduit and Discharge Well is inside an operating treatment plant and is not open to the public. Visits depend on whether the Matsue City Water and Sewerage Bureau is accepting them, so ask ahead.

If you get the chance, walk east along the conduit from the receiving well and note how the discharge well lines up with filter bed No. 3. The channel is live equipment; take photographs only as staff allow.