May 24, 2011
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Shitty River
There has been so much bad stories in the news lately so here is something that should make you feel much better, especially if you live in Chicago. It turns out the Chicago River is one of the nations most threatened waterways. How so you might ask? Well, I can summarize it for you, but I would not do as good of a job as the article right here:
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-05-17/news/ct-met-chicago-river-endangeredlist-20110517_1_chicago-river-waterways-water-quality
Things are so bad that attempting to clean it would be a waste of money, no pun intended. So what is it that makes the river so bad off? Well, for starters Chicago is the only major U.S. city that fails to disinfect its sewage. Want to be even more disgusted? 1.2 billion gallons of partially treated human and industrial waste dumped into the river every day; hell do we even have a number high enough to estimate how much that is over the course of a decade? Fuck. And people made a big stink when the Dave Matthews Band emptied their bus toilets into the river. Of course, they emptied it directly onto people on a boat below so I guess they had a reason to be upset.
As disgusting as all of this is, it is amazing to me that the river doesn't have an unbearable stench emanating from it. Yet, I've driven over,or walked over and next to the Chicago River hundreds of times and have never noticed a smell. Of course, that doesn't make it any less disgusting or sad, just surprising is all.
Comments (2)
That's pretty gross. Doesn't the river trickle down through a bunch of states? Lovely.
Yeah, it eventually flows into the Mississippi River. On it's way I believe it flows into the Des Plaines River which is about 2 miles due east from my house. Many of the other towns though do disinfect their sewage so it should not be much of an issue by the time it moves onto other rivers.
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