Let’s face it. The home of the Mudhens baseball team (who this season may well be better than either of our allegedly “Major League” franchises) experienced a problem this weekend that could just as easily occur in Chicago.
BOTH CITIES RELY on the Great Lakes for their fresh
water drinking supply. We may make jokes about Lake Erie. But it really isn’t
all that different from Lake Michigan from which we take.
The algae bloom that developed near a structure used
by Toledo to draw water from Lake Erie to plants where it is treated before
being put into the system where it eventually comes out of the faucets in
peoples’ residences is something that could happen here.
It could easily be us someday experiencing a stretch
of time when we’re alerted to NOT drink the water or cook with it, or even try
to bathe in it if it turns out we’re particularly sensitive physically.
If Mayor Rahm Emanuel has any sense, he’ll do whatever
it takes to reduce the odds that any such incident were ever to occur on the
southwestern shores of Lake Michigan.
WE CLAIM MICHAEL Bilandic got dumped as mayor
because his city let a heavy winter storm get out of control. Just envision how
we’d demonize a mayor who let the lake get tainted – even for a few days.
That might well be the only circumstances under
which Robert Shaw could actually win the mayoral election cycle coming up next
year.
The fact is that the algae bloom that caused the
problem in Toledo is a part of nature – or at least nature interacting with the
human species.
A notice issued by Toledo city officials during the
weekend said such bloom is caused by runoff from over-fertilized farm fields, livestock
pens or malfunctioning septic systems.
WE COULD EASILY have similar circumstances occur in
Chicago if we’re not careful.
In fact, there are times I think it is miraculous
that the water from the Chicago River – which at one time was toxic but is now
merely polluted – doesn’t routinely cause problems for the Lake Michigan water
supply that the city relies on both in terms of a drinking supply and a source
of revenue for the hundreds of suburbs it sells water access to.
It often is called one of the engineering marvels of
modern-day society that the flow of the Chicago River was reversed so that the
pollution flows downstate across Illinois and ultimately to the Mississippi
River.
It is a good part of the reason why I am skeptical
of those people who fear the concept of Asian Carp getting into Lake Michigan,
who try to blame the river’s reversal as some sort of unnatural act that caused
the potential problem, and want it reversed back to the way Mother Nature had
it before there was a “Chicago” on the shores of Lake Michigan.
THEY’D HAVE A heck of a lot of contaminates wind up
in our city’s drinking water supply. To such a degree that we’d be an even
bigger news story than what occurred in Toledo this weekend – and which seems
to have come to an end Monday morning.
The people of Toledo will soon be back to turning on
their faucet if they want a drink of water. While we ought to hope we never
experience such a state of affairs.
Because the levels needed to contaminate water aren’t
that large – CNN reported Monday morning that one drop would be sufficient to
taint a swimming pool. The part of Lake Michigan that Chicago draws water from
may be much larger, but could still be tainted.
Just think how unpleasant a place Chicago would
become if we had to go for a stretch of time without showering? Particularly in
the midst of summer? Peee-yoooo!
-30-
No comments:
Post a Comment