Canada. Public Health Engineering Division : The Public Health Engineering Division (PHED) was founded in 1938. Prior to the Division's creation, the Department of Health (and subsequently the Department of National Health and Welfare) was responsible for public health and sanitation matters on a more casual basis. The concern with matters of public health in the post World War II era led to a major expansion of the division in the 1940s and again in the 1960s when modern waste disposal and sanitation methods were introduced to remote rural and northern communities.
The PHED was the body in the federal government which could be consulted on all matters relating to the physical side of public health and sanitation. It had extensive research responsibilities and was a leading force in the public health and sanitation realm of civil engineering. The PHED funded and supervised public health projects in various civil engineering programs and was responsible for promoting new techniques and programmes at conferences and inter-departmental meetings. The Division also provided technical advice on matters such as: locating safe water sources; fluorination of drinking water; solving contaminated water, milk, and food problems; disposal of industrial waste; designing sewage systems for unusual circumstances; emergency measures; pollution of waters; and industrial waste. Although federal departments were the primary recipients of PHED consultive services, technical advice was also rendered to international commissions in which Canada participated, provincial governments, cities, and municipalities.
Meeting the needs of the PHED's audiences involved exhaustive research into specialized areas of public health and sanitation and the routine inspection of federal and some private facilities. The Division inspected federal buildings, federally funded project sites (such as parks, Indian residential schools, and the CNR shops), and some private transport and food production companies. Regular inspection of the water and sewer arrangements of fish canneries and transport vessels consumed a good deal of the PHED's time and financial resources. Airplanes, trains, and ships were inspected for contaminated food, milk, water and ice, adequate potable water and food receptacles, and waste disposal facilities.
PHED was transferred to Environment Canada in 1971 and was dismantled the following year
