We’ve tackled sewage and drainage before in our London Sewers episode, and today we explore the enormous lengths the city of Chicago has taken to address their water and sewage systems, and how their approach has evolved over more than 150 years.

While Chicago has been a city since 1837, the hugely populated city constructed in low lying wetlands had no central drainage system until 1855 when Chicago’s Chief Sewage Engineer and former Chief Engineer for Boston’s Water Commission, Ellis Sylvester Chesbrough, proposed a sewage system strongly inspired by the plans for the London Interceptor Sewers, a massive undertaking that would be the first of its kind in North America.

The plan would involve routing wastewater into the Chicago River so it could be diluted before reaching Lake Michigan, the source of Chicago’s water supply. The process of constructing this drainage system would involve building pipes on top of the existing wooden-slat style roads, burying these pipes, and building new roads on top. To accommodate for this the majority of buildings in the city would be raised 2-3m, and initiative known at the time as “pulling Chicago out of the mud.” Some buildings that were deemed too challenging to raise would be simply relocated to other areas of the city.

In 1861 the Board of Sewers and Board of Waters were incorporated into a single entity, the Board of Public Works, and Chesborough’s decision to drain Chicago’s sewage into their water supply would now be his responsibility to fix. To help increase the dilution level of the water, 3km of pipes would be laid underneath the lake to extend the intake to a more diluted area of the lake, but as we’ve already learned dilution may go a long way, but it won’t stop diseases like cholera.

After Chesborough’s death in 1886 Rudolph Hering would be assigned to investigate Chicago’s wastewater problem and would conclude a year later that they would need to stop using Lake Michigan as both their sewer and water source. This recommendation would be followed by a number of incremental solutions, from diverting the flow of water away from Lake Michigan into the Illinois River, lowering the level of the lake by 15cm and majorly affecting surrounding areas in the late 1800s, to eventually constructing the first sewage treatment plant in 1920.

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Learn more at: MeasuredInMetric.com

Edited by: Astronomic Audio

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