From: Chuck Kuecker (ckuecker@ckent.org)
Date: Sun Feb 24 2002 - 07:19:51 MST
Actually, after Chicago's treatment plants, it's pretty nice. Lake
Michigan, on the whole, is one of the cleanest of the Great Lakes,
surpassed only by Superior.
Isolated areas like Waukegan Harbor (PCBs from Outboard Marine and asbestos
from Johns-Manville) and the Calumet Harbor - Gary, Indiana area ARE pretty
ripe, though.
In Cary, the water is ancient, from a 600 - 1000 foot deep aquifer
stretching into mid-Wisconsin - and the water level is dropping. A piquant
trace blend of barium and radium, with a dash of TCE for that special zing.
Since most of the growth in Northern Illinois is occurring in areas like
mine, it can only get worse.
Illinois is limited by international agreement to how much Lake Michigan
water we can take - and where we can use it. Lake water has to be used on
the lake side of the ridge in the watershed - roughly three miles east of
where I live - presumably so the used water goes back into the lake basin.
Only problem with that theory is that all treatment plants in Northern
Illinois dump their effluent into the Illinois River system, and then into
the Mississippi. I guess bureaucrats can't take into account subtleties
like that.
I always wondered why we can't use the reclaimed sewage in a second,
non-potable system strictly for flushing toilets, washing clothes, and
irrigation and industrial uses. If the effluent is as clean as they keep
claiming, accidental ingestion would not be a problem.
Chuck Kuecker
At 07:15 PM 2/23/02 -0800, you wrote:
>Chuck Kuecker wrote:
> >
> > Obviously, you have never seen a Cary, Illinois water bill - or the
> > associated late charge - or the restrictions on use if there's two weeks
> > without rain in the summer...
> >
> > (We can't get Lake Michigan water - on the wrong side of the watershed)
> >
>
>But would you really *want* Lake Michigan water? It's almost as nasty
>as Lake Erie...
>
>--
>Doug Jones, Rocket Plumber
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