Plans to Re-reverse the Chicago River?
 

Hustle & Flow
Aaron Seward
11.10.2010
Link To Full Article

... While many strategies are being bandied about the table at the moment, the most provocative by far, and most ambitious in terms of scale of work and repercussions to business and the environment, is a plan to re-separate the Mississippi and Great Lakes basins by re-reversing the flows of the Chicago and Calumet rivers.

While it’s too soon to tell if this would be a feasible approach, the idea has been gaining support. Even now, outgoing Mayor Richard M. Daley has thrown himself behind it. “That’s a great project,” he recently told The Chicago Tribune. “That could be the salvation, maybe, of the Great Lakes.” ...

Just so people don't get confused, the Chicago river flow can be alternated at any time artificially. I've seen days where they've flicked a switch and the water began flowing out to the lake....that is nasty brown water. Key thing about this article is separating basins and restoring natural flow. At this point in time the water is very dirty, and the present impacts on lake Michigan as far as pollutants wouldn't be so great.

Theres a double standard. When Indiana or Wisconsin pollutes the lake, Chicago gets up in arms. Never mind that we send our sh*t down the Mississippi and are the single greatest contributor to the Gulf of Mexico dead zone.

A crappy way to justify that though is that the water system will begin to filter out pollutants along its length.

But it will also contaminate the soil, hurt downriver cities, etc....

not factually true. the limiting nutrient for marine bacterial growth is dissolved nitrogen which, for the mississippi river basin, is dominated by non-point source agricultural runoff.

Another, less well known, place where the two systems can come into contact is Eagle Marsh, west of Fort Wayne, Indiana. The Little River, a Wabash River tributary, and the Saint Marys River, a Maumee River tributary both abut a wetland preserve where their waters can comingle during floods that are increasingly frequent on both.

It's not so much a route for pollutants to flow from one system to the other, as it is a possible route for Asian carp that already infest the Wabash to find their way to Lake Erie. To reduce that likelihood, the Corps of Army Engineers in October, 2010, completed a mesh barrier fence across the area that is intended to prevent the migration of carp during high water. The fence is intended as an interim measure until a more permanent solution can be devised. It's designed to restrain adult fish, as juveniles are thought unlikely to be able to migrate that far upstream.

http://www.journalgazette.net/articl...GS01/100719773

http://www.lrwp.org/news.php#U-95

fascinating. i never knew that.

as for the asian carp and the great lakes, they've been in the lakes before (fact), they're probably in the lakes right now, and they're gonna be in the lakes in the future. the hyperbolic fear-mongering that has surrounded this issue has truly gotten out of hand when we start hearing crack-pot ideas about re-reversing the flows of the chicago and calumet rivers. not. gonna. happen.

asian carp are river fish, not cold, deep, lake fish. sure, they'll venture into the lakes from time to time and perhaps even thrive in river mouths and some shallower near-shore areas, but this mythical doomsday scenario of the the carp completely taking over the lakes and wiping out all other extant species of fish in the lakes is not based on any credible science.

I wouldn't call re-reversing the chicago river crack-pot, though you don't do it because of asian carp. the reason you re-reverse the chicago river is because on a 50-100 year time frame the city needs to be within the great lakes basin watershed to keep its water allocation instead of eventually having to buy it.

I'm pretty sure it was a crackpot idea to reverse the river in the first place. Ballsy, brash, and awesome, but still crack-pot.

I still find it unbelievably impressive that the city would rather spend millions of dollars and employ thousands of people digging a channel to reverse the flow of a major river, rather than work to reduce the crazy pollution that the industries were dumping in the river. It's the kind of thing you'd expect China to do today.

Old news but pertinent to the thread.





http://www.businessweek.com/ap/finan.../D9JS0D780.htm


The Associated Press December 2, 2010, 3:50PM ET

Judge: Chicago locks can stay open over Asian carp


A federal judge has ruled against five states hoping to stop Asian Carp from invading the Great Lakes by closing Chicago-area shipping locks.

U.S. District Judge Robert Dow on Thursday said the locks will remain open. He says while potential harm from the invasive species could be great, plaintiffs did not present enough evidence that the harm was imminent.

Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin officials wanted the locks closed and barriers installed to prevent the giant fish from slipping into the lakes and potentially decimating a $7 billion-a-year fishing industry.

Opponents say that closing the locks would undermine critical flood-control measures in the Chicago region and hurt commerce.

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and a long and itersesting read.

http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/111329919.html

It is not "hyperbole" or "doomsday" at all - these fish have no natural predators and are killing off and out breeding the native fish stock, and causing irreparable ecological harm, just as the zebra mussel infestation has done (altho I do like the clearer and cleaner waters the mussels provide - but that cleaner clearer water has devestated the native lake fish population).