Crap versus Carp

I'm not sure how many people outside the Great Lakes Region are paying much attention to the Asian Carp battle. Currently, breeding populations  are about 100 miles from Lake Michigan. The Asian Carp has been all over the environmental wires because it could devastate native fish populations in the Great Lakes.  If you want to have a little fun and learn about this works play this game. I was addicted to it for about an hour or so this past Monday.

In December of 2009, Michigan sued Illinois arguing that the carp must be kept from the Lake. Michigan, and a few other states have joined the suit, asked the U.S. Supreme Court to force Illinois to close all of the connections between Lake Michigan and the Mississippi River to keep the carp out of the Great Lakes Basin. Illinois would have to permanently close the locks of the Chicago River and block the canals on the Chicago's South Side. The interstate battle, of course, boils down to economics. Michigan is arguing that the carp would irreparably harm its ga-zillion dollar commercial fishing industry, and Illinois argues that a separation would harm its ga-zillion dollar shipping industry.

But to me this whole thing just got a lot more interesting on Wednesday. The USEPA and US Department of Justice reached a settlement with the State of Illinois regarding the combined sewage overflow problem in Chicago. When there's a big storm and the system is flooded, the sewers and storm sewers are combined. Normally, the Water Reclamation District can just fill up a series of deep tunnels to store the water temporarily before treating it. But sometimes, when storms are so big, like the three weeks of rain the Chicago area had last June, the District flushes water containing raw sewage directly into the Lake via the canals. YAY!

If the canals are forced closed by the "Separation," the District's options for moving the CSO water will be greatly limited. All of Chicago's poo will be sent to St. Louis. Chicago will literally be crapping on St. Louis. Take that Cardinal's Fans...a little payback for the Cubbies sucking so bad.

Actually, I'm being a little cynical. If you look at the press release and the details of the settlement there's a lot of talk about making sure that the storm water doesn't even hit the streams. So the approach will be to increase the storage capacity of the deep tunnels and to increase Chicago's green infrastructure and wetlands to increase the region's natural storage capacity. I know a lot of the details will need to be ironed out, but this is a good thing.