Louis (which sued, and lost) and, years later, making Chicago the single-largest contributor to the “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico.
In 1900, engineers reversed the flow of the Chicago River to protect the city’s drinking water, shifting its fetid contents from the Great Lakes to the Mississippi, enraging the city of St. Before the Civil War, entire city blocks were lifted on hydraulic jacks to allow for better drainage, and the first tunnel to bring in potable water from the middle of Lake Michigan was completed in 1867.
#Tunnel chicago series
The history of Chicago can be told as a series of escapes from wastewater, each more ingenious than the last. “We have this tendency in this country to think we can build our way out of stuff. about once every two or three days, according to a recent study of National Weather Service data. Over the past 25 years, an urban flooding event has occurred in the U.S. Even hurricanes cause more flooding damage from rivers and rain than from storm surge. Big two-day storms are 53 percent more frequent. In the Midwest, for example, the amount of rain falling in the heaviest storm events increased 37 percent between 19. has sealed up natural land, rainstorms are getting stronger. Others did so because decades of sprawl in Houston haves overlaid the region’s natural features with human-made flood plains whose contours are determined by concrete, displaced earth, and sewer capacity.Īt the same time as metropolitan development in the U.S. Of the rest, some flooded because Harvey was a once-in-10,000-year storm. Only half of them were in federally designated flood plains-the low-lying land, often along tidal bays, creeks, and rivers, which FEMA believes might be inundated during the heaviest rain. In August 2017, Hurricane Harvey flooded more than 150,000 homes in Harris County, home of Houston. Much of the American landscape sits at the precarious intersection of sprawl and climate change. The rainstorms are too big for the bottle. In fact, far from building a catchall for Chicago wastewater until the end of time, the MWRD is now encouraging local projects-initiatives like rain barrels and green roofs and detention ponds-to keep water out of the system. It shouldn’t have a dead river without fish in it.” But, he adds, it’s now clear that this 50-year, multibillion-dollar project will not be sufficient to stop flooding in Chicago. A modern city shouldn’t have people’s homes flooded with sewage.
“To have today’s types of storms without this capacity, I don’t think we could function as a modern city. This whole endeavor, Fitzpatrick says, has been an unreserved success. When those new residents take a shower or flush the toilet during a rainstorm, the water winds up here. That aggregate winds up in the concrete that abets Chicago’s downtown building boom. Vulcan Materials, the country’s largest vendor of crushed rock, is digging millions of cubic yards of limestone out of the ground. Behind us, the second section of McCook-which will more than double the holding capacity of the Mainstream Tunnel-is being excavated by gigantic mining trucks.
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