Latest / Privycast / Ep. 104 History of Chicago Sewers and Sanitation Concerns feat. Dave Matthews Band

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Ep. 104 History of Chicago Sewers and Sanitation Concerns feat. Dave Matthews Band · Privycast

0:01
>> Speaker A: The only thing that's probably worse than having poop in your
0:03
clean water supply is having poop in where you
0:06
live. Like, just coming back up at you.
0:13
Um, welcome back to privy. Privy
0:15
is a podcast about bathrooms
0:18
recorded from my home bathroom. I'm m
0:21
your host, hunter Hoover, and I love
0:24
bathrooms. Good. Um, morning.
0:26
Uh, this is, I think, one of my first ever
0:29
morning. Uh, my. I don't
0:32
have my polar seltzer. It's too early for a polar seltzer. But I
0:35
do have Kirkland signature
0:38
coffee, ground coffee brewed at
0:41
home, uh, which is honestly better than any
0:44
coffee, and it is already beginning
0:46
to work. The taco Bell disaster through the system this
0:49
morning wanted to share something
0:52
that I'm seeing as both things popping up
0:55
on the Internet, uh, but also, like, hands on.
0:58
I'm seeing them in the wild, which is fun, is
1:01
there doesn't seem to be a shortage
1:04
of premium porta potties. And what I
1:06
mean by premium porta potties is
1:10
these are, like, portable toilets,
1:13
but they are elevated to an extent
1:16
that is, like, they're not really a
1:18
porta potty anymore. They almost seem like a home
1:21
toilet that has been placed where
1:24
you would expect a porta potty. It's kind of cool,
1:27
but, yeah. Uh, on a recent road
1:30
trip, again, we went to Montana. I saw no less
1:32
than three different brands of these
1:35
porta potties. And, um, I have
1:38
reached out to a couple of different
1:41
luxury, uh, I think is the term luxury
1:44
porta potty brands to see if they would be interested
1:47
in coming on and sharing their backstory. Uh,
1:50
have not had any takers yet, so, um,
1:53
if you're one of these luxury porta potty
1:55
companies and you're interested, um, we
1:58
love talking about bathrooms here on privy.
2:01
I also got to use one for the first time,
2:04
and they kind of remind me of, like, a
2:07
camper bathroom. Like, if you've ever been camping
2:10
in a camper. Uh, it reminds me of
2:12
that, but just kind of a little more
2:15
decorated, and the amenities are a little
2:18
nicer. It was actually really cool. None of
2:21
the ones that I saw on our trip were the
2:23
brand that I was aware of before we went to
2:26
Montana. Uh, and
2:30
one of my favorite parts of this luxury bathroom,
2:33
at least the one I use, I don't think they're all this way.
2:36
Um, but the one I used
2:39
was a standing structure. They had installed
2:41
it as a replacement
2:44
for the gas station bathrooms, which were
2:47
out of order. And
2:51
they're luxury little porta potties, and they
2:54
looked pretty nice, and
2:57
you come out of this luxury porta potty,
3:00
and there's just the brown
3:05
accordion tube snake of crap that's
3:08
running out of the back of it. And so you had this
3:10
moderately posh porta potty with just the most
3:13
visceral, disgusting image of that
3:16
looked like it went to the rV. Like crapper dump.
3:19
Um, so good. Uh,
3:26
those who listen to the show, we're in rant section here.
3:29
We'll get to the stuff. We got some stuff this week,
3:31
but
3:35
people who listen to the show, they know that I'm a fan of Pokemon.
3:38
And Pokemon put out, uh, a few weeks ago now
3:41
at the point of this record, but it was fresh on
3:44
my fingertips at the point of writing
3:47
the episode, uh, pokemon sleep. And
3:50
the app is interesting. Uh, I don't know if
3:53
it helps me sleep. It mostly just reminds me that I'm
3:56
incredibly bad at getting enough sleep.
3:59
Um, but, yeah, it is what it is.
4:01
But this week on privy, I
4:04
also want to acknowledge, um, that
4:07
we have once again broken our release an
4:10
episode on the fives format. Normally,
4:13
we release an episode on the fifth, 15th, and
4:16
25th of every month. Um, and the month
4:19
of August, 2023 of our Lord. We've
4:22
broken that. We broke it last, uh, episode we
4:25
released on the first to give you all enough time for
4:27
voting for the America's best Restroom 2023.
4:30
Hopefully, you have voted at the point of this
4:33
episode's release. You will have three days left
4:36
to vote. And then if Cintus does
4:39
it anyway, like they did it last year, they will shut down
4:41
voting and then wait, like, three months before they actually tell
4:44
us who won. I could not tell you why it
4:47
takes them three months to calculate online votes,
4:50
but here we are.
4:53
But we're breaking our on the
4:56
fives release schedule again this week
4:58
because today, the day of this
5:01
episode's released, August eigth,
5:04
commemorates a big moment
5:07
in bathroom history and, dare I say,
5:10
a moment that has
5:12
never occurred since, hopefully hasn't,
5:15
and I don't believe has occurred prior
5:18
to it, uh, stands out in american and
5:21
bathroom history. But before we get to
5:24
that, I want to lay some groundwork,
5:26
because I feel
5:30
that it is my duty to provide you a bathroom
5:32
history lesson. And
5:35
so we need to do a little bathroom
5:38
history lesson this week to commemorate this
5:41
event. This week on privy, we're going to talk
5:44
about another city in America,
5:47
in a roundabout way of discussing an
5:49
anniversary of today.
5:53
In 2010,
5:56
I took a school
5:59
trip for business
6:02
professionals of America to Chicago, Illinois.
6:05
Chicago. Chicago. Uh,
6:08
shout out to Sims high school, uh,
6:12
if you know where Sims high school is. You
6:15
are probably one of couple
6:18
thousand people in the last hundred
6:20
years. Uh,
6:23
but yeah, it's a tiny little
6:26
school in a tiny little town of Sims,
6:28
Montana. Um, but
6:31
Ms. Rohr, our computer and
6:34
business professionals, uh, I guess coach,
6:37
uh, she had a good program and
6:40
she ran it well. And, um,
6:43
she took a bunch of us to state that year
6:48
in 2010 or 2011, I can't remember.
6:51
A handful of kids from my school and
6:54
I ventured to Chicago. Uh, you
6:56
got these kind of small town
6:59
hillbillies moving into Chicago, Illinois, for the
7:02
weekend, uh, for this business
7:04
professionals competition. And, um,
7:07
today we're going to look briefly at the history
7:10
of Chicago
7:13
and the sanitation of this city.
7:24
The first white people before
7:27
the. The pale face, pasty
7:30
white Montanans arrived in
7:32
2011. Um, the first white people
7:35
arrived in the Chicago area and settled,
7:38
uh, in 1780. The white
7:41
people who arrive
7:44
were of Santo Domingo.
7:47
And the word Chicago is a
7:49
Miami indian word for the wild
7:52
leaks. They're like onions, if, you know, far
7:55
fetched from Pokemon. He carries a leak.
7:58
Uh, but that grew along the
8:01
Chicago river. Now,
8:04
between 18, 18, 30
8:07
Native Americans in the area resisted the
8:10
settlements through attempts at peace.
8:13
And when these proved
8:15
unproductive, they ended with
8:18
the Blackhawk war in 1832.
8:21
It's not great. Uh, essentially, we
8:23
liked the area's benefits, the waterways,
8:26
the very good leaks, um,
8:29
the opportunity for grain and other technologies.
8:32
So the european
8:35
settlers kicked the native Americans out of the
8:37
area. Bad luck. Um, not good. And
8:40
I think if you explore a lot of american history, you're going to find
8:43
that, um, it is what it is. Here
8:46
we are. Uh, but Chicago was incorporated
8:49
as a town in 1833. Man, they wasted no
8:52
time like 1832. And then 1833,
8:55
let's set this thing up. And
8:58
within 20 years, the population boomed
9:01
to over 40,000, many of
9:03
whom were immigrants.
9:06
And when you have a big population
9:09
boom, anytime you have a large group of
9:12
people that are gathered, there's going to be an
9:15
added level of stank. Uh, last night, I
9:17
took our youth to, um,
9:20
bullwinkles. It's kind of a local family fun center.
9:23
And, uh, there's just
9:26
some people that, especially when you're inside. We were in the
9:28
laser tag, and I got placed on a team of
9:31
random teens against my group because
9:34
they're like, oh, we need someone. And the teens just kind of
9:37
stand there and geek out. They, like,
9:40
short circuit as the social pressures of the world
9:43
weigh on them. So, uh, I was on their team.
9:45
And when you're just enclosed in
9:48
laser tag, there's just a weird funk in the air. It was
9:51
so hot and stinky. And I'm going to be honest,
9:54
I'm contributing to the stank.
9:58
You got to own your stank. But
10:01
it doesn't smell good. But anytime you get
10:04
a group of people together, there's going to
10:07
be some funk. There's going to be some funk in the air. And not
10:09
the, uh, good funk, like dropping the beat
10:12
funk. We're talking about the strange little
10:15
armpit welch that comes out.
10:18
And, um, the same was
10:21
true for Chicago in the mid 18
10:24
hundreds. And so to help with the
10:27
stench and overall just
10:29
widespread of disease, they
10:32
introduced bathhouses. And boy, did
10:35
Chicago have some bathhouses.
10:37
One ad which was placed in the
10:40
Chicago Tribune in 1849,
10:43
read, and this is now,
10:46
quote. Johnson's bathing and shaving
10:48
saloon. The subscriber takes pleasure
10:51
in informing his old customers. That the
10:54
public generally. That he has removed
10:57
his established opposite. His old stand on
10:59
Clark street between Lake and Randolph. Where he has
11:02
fitted up in a superior manner for all
11:05
reception. Who may
11:08
favor him with a call. While in anticipation of
11:11
the cholera making its appearance in Chicago this spring and
11:14
summer. It is well known to all that bathing
11:17
is considered a great preventative of this dreadful
11:20
disease. Therefore, I repeat that one
11:22
preventative is better than a hundred cures. Friday
11:25
evening of every week from 09:00 to eleven. Will
11:28
be set apart for the express accommodation of ladies.
11:31
At which time the public shop will be
11:34
closed. Bathing, shaving, haircutting and
11:36
shampooing. All done at, uh, the shortest
11:39
notice. Single tickets. Thirty cents. Four tickets for
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a dollar. The subscriber returns his
11:45
general thanks to the public for their liberal
11:48
patronage. And hopes
11:52
it will not be condemned. W. Uh, M.
11:55
Johnson. So Mr.
11:58
W. Johnson, um, big
12:01
WJ, he put out this ad. And this
12:04
is one of many, uh, like, ads. Uh, probably
12:07
not just in Chicago. This was probably typical.
12:09
But the cholera situation was
12:12
so bad in Chicago and other places.
12:15
That the dude just puts in his
12:18
newspaper ad, hey, do you want to not die from
12:20
cholera? Well, then come take a very good bath at my
12:23
bathhouse. Uh, he also notes that
12:26
the time of nine to 11:00
12:28
p.m. Are for women
12:34
on Friday. So, like once a week.
12:37
And I'm sitting here going,
12:41
why are you having the ladies go out at nine to eleven?
12:45
That doesn't seem like the safest time of night.
12:48
And so if you're trying to, uh, provide a safe space where
12:50
it's private for women. It seems like a bad move to set
12:53
the hours of that at nine to eleven at night.
12:56
Wm. Johnson figure it straight out.
12:59
But people at the
13:02
time, as you can tell, they did not
13:04
have bathing facilities in
13:07
their homes, so they went out to take a
13:10
bath. The disease. As
13:13
noted, there were six cholera
13:15
outbreaks in six years in a row
13:18
between 1848 and 1854.
13:21
Every single year had an extensive
13:23
cholera outbreak.
13:26
Mr. Johnson's, uh,
13:29
article was listed in the paper right smack
13:31
dab at the beginning of these. In
13:34
1849, the
13:36
city of Chicago
13:39
had a drainage problem. The streets
13:42
had trouble, and as the city grew, we had a
13:45
problem. As is noted,
13:47
Chicago has a relationship
13:50
with water
13:52
supplies around it. Well,
13:55
water makes things swampy.
13:58
And much like Shrek's butt crack and his
14:00
home, Chicago was too swampy for all those
14:03
people. And they either need to get people out of the swamp
14:06
or they need to make the swamp less swampy.
14:09
A public works project began in the
14:12
1850s which looked
14:15
to raise Chicago.
14:18
Now, you might hear that
14:20
sentiment, raise Chicago. And you're like, oh, we're going
14:23
to bring up the city and
14:26
teach people how to be clean.
14:29
No, I would ask you,
14:32
have you ever changed a tire?
14:34
Because one key aspect is
14:37
jacking the vehicle up to get up
14:39
underneath there. Um, yeah,
14:43
you got to jack that noise right up.
14:46
And that's what they did to the central
14:49
part of Chicago.
14:54
They literally jacked up the city.
14:57
Not like, oh, uh, they screwed it up. They
15:00
raised it using
15:02
lifts. They literally
15:05
raised Chicago out of the
15:07
muck. The booming
15:09
population led to a water
15:12
problem. Not everyone can just go down
15:14
to the local water supply at this point and get clean
15:17
water. And when you add
15:20
bathhouses and the need for people to get clean, you got to have
15:23
a place to put the very rank stank
15:26
water that comes off of people's bodies and
15:28
nethers. So what are we
15:31
to do? A man
15:34
named Ellis Chesboro
15:37
Rose to the task. Get it? Rose. Because they raised
15:40
Chicago. Um, Ellis Chesborough
15:43
was responsible for the idea of
15:46
raising Chicago, and he also
15:48
came up with the use of water cribs
15:51
offshore in Lake Michigan for
15:54
the intake and treatment of water for the city of
15:56
Chicago. The first of these offshore
15:59
water cribs, the two
16:02
mile crib, effectively
16:05
interacted with the Chicago water tower. We're going to get to
16:08
that in a moment. To provide water to the city,
16:11
these were connected to the city via
16:13
pump and a two mile long pipe.
16:16
Thus the name of the water crib, which
16:19
ran from the crib in the middle of Lake
16:21
Michigan underneath
16:24
the lake to the pump station in the
16:27
middle of the city of Chicago.
16:30
This pump station, this two mile
16:32
crib, the, uh, pump station.
16:35
I misspoke. The two mile crib was later
16:38
demolished, and in Chicago's
16:41
history, they have had nine of these water
16:43
cribs off site in Lake
16:45
Michigan, um, six of which are
16:48
still standing and only two of which are still
16:51
in use. They still use these. They're
16:54
like little mini water treatment things that intake
16:57
and pump to the city. In
17:00
1869, the Chicago water
17:03
tower was completed with a clever system of
17:05
intake and storage.
17:08
What's interesting about this water tower
17:11
is it looks nothing like a water tower.
17:14
It looks almost like a church. It's got kind of like a
17:17
steeple looking thing. But inside
17:20
it is a 138 foot tall
17:23
standpipe for water storage.
17:25
This could regulate output to different needs
17:28
within the city. It intook from those water
17:31
cribs in Lake Michigan, it was coal fired
17:34
and steam driven, drew water, and
17:36
provided 15 million gallons per
17:39
day to the city's water mains.
17:43
Now, they also note
17:46
that this water
17:48
tower would be a key
17:51
structure when they were building it. They noted that it
17:54
would be a key structure in the case of a fire in
17:57
the city of Chicago to provide
18:00
firefighting, um, aid.
18:03
Well, in 1871,
18:06
one third of Chicago
18:09
burnt to the ground, leaving over
18:11
100,000 people without homes.
18:14
To this day, the source of the fire is
18:17
unknown. And so you
18:19
would think, wow, a third of
18:22
Chicago. It's good thing they had that water
18:24
tower pump, otherwise it could have been worse.
18:28
Well, the water tower pump
18:30
provided no support to
18:33
the firefighting effort because the top of the
18:36
pump caught fire and the pump quit working.
18:40
It's not funny. It's just
18:44
seems it's kind of like one of those. Nowadays,
18:48
every other day, somebody posts on the Internet,
18:51
oh, look, the Simpsons predicted the future.
18:53
And no, your brain just makes connect.
18:56
But it's almost as
18:59
if they're building this water town. They're like, man,
19:02
this thing's going to be awesome. If we ever have a giant
19:05
fire that consumes one third of our city,
19:08
good thing we're building it. And then they have that. But
19:11
it is catch for fire, and it doesn't help.
19:14
The miraculous part of this water pump. Almost
19:17
as if someone out there knew that Chicago needed
19:20
the water pump after the fire, they were going to need it.
19:24
The tower did not burn. And now this might
19:27
also stand as a measure of frustration. It's
19:30
like, really,
19:32
you couldn't help with this fire, but you also couldn't be
19:35
destroyed by it. But the water tower did not
19:38
burn. The water pump did not burn down. It caught. Fire did not
19:41
burn down in response
19:44
to a third of the city being
19:46
burned. The city then needed to be
19:49
rebuilt. Large name businesses jumped
19:52
at the opportunity, and this remodel
19:55
produced the world's first
19:57
skyscraper, a ten story home insurance
20:00
building. Somewhat ironic.
20:03
Too soon. The remodel also saw
20:06
the call for more public bathhouses,
20:09
21 of which were built for poor and
20:11
immigrant communities between 1894
20:14
and 18 and 1918.
20:17
The first of these, the Harrington bathhouse,
20:20
named after the assassinated mayor of Chicago.
20:23
Okay. Opened in
20:25
1894. It cost
20:27
$21,000 to build.
20:30
These bathhouses
20:33
were typically reserved for the poor and immigrant
20:36
populations. They were small, they were modest.
20:39
They contained between 20 and 40 showers. And
20:42
if you look at the numbers of Chicago
20:44
dwellers, 20 to 40 showers per
20:47
bathhouse, even if you had a couple of hundred of these, is not enough
20:50
for everyone to bathe. They were unisex,
20:53
and only two days of the week were
20:56
shut down for the exclusive use of women and
20:59
children. You were allowed 20
21:01
minutes for a shower, but an attendant
21:05
would often only let you shower for seven to eight
21:07
minutes. They. The attendant also
21:10
controlled the temperature, which was often left as
21:13
cold.
21:18
These public bathhouses, they served
21:21
less as a means to get clean, and in
21:24
time, more as a means to cool off.
21:27
In their peak use, in 1910, it
21:30
was estimated that a total of
21:33
1,070,000 showers were
21:36
taken across the 15 bathhouses of
21:38
Chicago. That's a lot in a
21:41
year. This began to see the
21:44
decline with the opening of public pools.
21:47
Beach access, Lake beach access on Lake
21:49
Michigan, and civil reform
21:52
calling for indoor plumbing. Baths began
21:55
to be installed in homes, and as a result,
21:58
people do not need to go to the bath, or at least
22:01
people who can afford a bath in their home.
22:04
The bathhouses led to widespread
22:07
racism and prejudice, not
22:10
just in Chicago,
22:11
um, with people
22:14
of color and immigrant populations receiving
22:17
less time in the shower, colder showers, and fewer
22:20
days of the week for them to access clean
22:23
bathing water. It's
22:25
bad. Um,
22:30
I'm not saying that a shower is a basic human
22:32
right. I think being clean is. Access to being clean is
22:35
a basic human right. But, yeah, this system
22:38
sucks. Uh,
22:41
I'd be pissed if I was taking a shower and
22:44
somebody cut me to cold water just because I didn't have the
22:47
right color of skin, I'd be pissed.
22:49
Um, but
22:52
these bathhouses began to close in
22:55
the. By 1970, only one
22:58
remained in skid row of Chicago.
23:01
This was closed in 1979. Good
23:04
riddance. Another, again, pretty
23:07
important part of the rebuild was the
23:09
implementation of a city sewer system.
23:13
In fact, the Chicago
23:16
sewer system is credited as being the
23:18
first large scale sewer system in America.
23:22
Chicago, hats off to you. You
23:25
gave us the first sewer system,
23:28
the Chicago sewer system, often called the
23:31
Chesboro sewers again, because we're
23:34
going to be hearing again from our engineer
23:37
friend. Ellis Chesboro oversaw the building
23:39
of much of the Chicago remodel and renovation.
23:43
Chesboro was a civil engineer
23:46
who only attended school through age
23:49
nine, and
23:51
because of the economy and his need to work, went
23:54
to work with his dad. Changing jobs
23:57
left school to be a city surveyor for the city
24:00
of Baltimore and later the city of Pennsylvania. He
24:03
took on farming in the 1840s, when work as an engineer
24:06
slowed, and when he returned, he was named the first
24:09
city engineer for Boston. It's
24:12
impressive. Only, only formally
24:14
educated through age nine, and the school
24:17
of hard knocks and life experience taught him the
24:20
rest. His plan
24:23
for Chicago was as
24:25
follows. Build the sewer at
24:28
ground level and then raise
24:31
everything else up above the
24:34
sewers and cover it from there.
24:38
These sewers were the first to feature manhole
24:41
covers, likely, uh, to allow
24:43
access to servicing certain sections of the sewer
24:46
line. The waste still emptied
24:49
out into Lake Michigan, which is why they had
24:52
to build the crib 2 miles offshore
24:55
away from the dookie water, because if they learned anything
24:58
from cholera, they're starting to learn,
25:00
you cannot drink the turd water.
25:03
You cannot do it. It is bad for you.
25:07
You will get sick. Bad news, bears
25:09
don't drink poopy water. Eventually,
25:12
the poopy water reached the crib. You
25:15
don't want that. In my experience of having children,
25:19
you do not want poop of any type in the crib.
25:22
If the poop is loose in the crib, you've done something terribly
25:25
wrong or something has gone terribly
25:27
awry.
25:30
So too was the poop in the crib in
25:33
Chicago. And so Chesboro went for
25:35
challenge number three. He had raised it as
25:38
much as 10ft. He built a pipe
25:41
2 miles into the water in Lake
25:44
Michigan, and now he was going to move the
25:47
Chicago river,
25:49
or at least make it flow backwards
25:52
away from Lake Michigan.
25:56
In the 1860s, about ten years prior
25:59
to the fire, Chesboro decided to dig a
26:02
canal to redirect the flow of the Chicago
26:05
river away from Lake Michigan and thus
26:07
carrying the very foul stank water away from their
26:10
drinking supply. The Illinois and
26:13
Michigan Canal was dug and completed by the mid
26:16
1880s and served to direct the
26:19
sewage away from Lake Michigan, to which
26:22
directed poopy water to the de Plains
26:24
river and eventually down to the old
26:27
Mississippi, which would then arrive in
26:30
the Gulf of Mexico. Hopefully it has
26:33
become so diluted by that point
26:35
that the smell and visible
26:38
turds are less there. Uh, shout out to
26:41
the river tames around the same time in history,
26:44
just going through the most foul stank they've ever seen.
26:47
Go check out our great stink
26:49
episode. Um, and
26:53
what's interesting is this actually worked.
26:55
He was able to change the direction and the flow of this
26:58
river until a big
27:01
storm in 1885 in which high
27:03
rainfall washed the poopy water back
27:06
up the canal into the
27:09
city. Bad news. The only thing
27:12
that's probably worse than having poop in your clean water
27:15
supply is having poop in where you live,
27:18
like, just coming back up at you.
27:20
Um, bad news. Worried
27:23
for a similar storm, it
27:26
was decided to dig another canal, a bigger
27:29
canal. You got to make it bigger
27:33
to reroute the poop away. This time for
27:35
good. We got to get the turds out of here for good. Remove
27:38
them. The engineer who saw
27:41
this through was not Ellis
27:44
Chesboro. Because
27:46
Chesboro passed before the canal was
27:49
completed, his plan put it into
27:51
motion. But Isham Randolph
27:55
is the engineer who completed this.
27:58
The Metropolitan Water reclamation district
28:01
of Greater Chicago, the MWRD,
28:03
the m m word, sought to do
28:06
this endeavor to keep the city of Chicago safe
28:10
and clean and preserve Lake
28:12
Michigan. The building of this canal
28:16
was the greatest earth moving
28:18
endeavor undertaken in the north
28:20
american continent up to this point.
28:23
They literally had to move the
28:26
earth in order to redirect
28:28
this for good. The engineers
28:31
and methods used
28:34
here at the metropolitan
28:37
water reclamation district of Greater Chicago
28:40
were later used to help
28:43
create the Panama Canal.
28:47
In the hundred years since its
28:49
construction, the legitimacy of the
28:52
canals has undergone international
28:55
and intense scrutiny and litigation
28:57
with Canada, sanitary scrutiny with Chicago
29:00
and other Illinois cities, and navigational scrutiny
29:03
with local and federal governments.
29:06
But at the end of the day, Chesboro
29:09
did it. He's
29:12
buried in Graceland Cemetery in
29:15
Chicago, Illinois.
29:18
But Chicago lived
29:21
on. As noted, Chicago was also home to
29:24
the world's first modern skyscraper,
29:27
100 plus feet worth of
29:29
floors. And while it is reported,
29:32
William LeBron, Jenny's insurance building
29:35
wasn't hooked to modern plumbing of Chicago.
29:38
These buildings poised a new
29:41
question, which would need to be
29:44
answered elsewhere on our show. Not today.
29:48
How do we get the poop from the top to the bottom?
29:52
But as was stated, the water redirection
29:55
faced scrutiny, and this caused Chicago to
29:58
focus their attention now in the 19
30:00
hundreds moving forward on waste
30:03
treatment. From 1920 to
30:06
1970, many waste treatment facilities
30:08
and sites were built and expanded to meet the
30:11
regulation and call for the restructuring
30:14
of the waste treatment of Chicago for clean
30:17
water, not just for the people, but for the lakes and water
30:20
supplies around them. By the
30:22
1970s, Chicago's wastewater treatment
30:25
facilities were the largest in the world.
30:29
Some concerns in the levels of Lake Michigan
30:32
as a result of the diversions persist. The
30:34
lake's going down because we keep redirecting
30:37
water from the lake to
30:40
get rid of the poop. The problem is
30:43
like, we need water in the lake, not just because the
30:46
lake needs water, because there's like animals and stuff there,
30:49
but also if that is our clean water drinking supply
30:52
and we're actively cutting it off, we need to do something
30:55
different. Further development
30:58
of canals was kiboshed put to the end
31:01
in the 1980s, when drought brought
31:04
lake levels to record lows.
31:08
The second thing we must remember is some
31:11
sewage still gets out. To address
31:14
this, the tunnel and reservoir plan,
31:16
or Tarp, called for over 10 miles
31:19
of tunnels to be used to capture this nasty
31:22
overflow, which was built and
31:24
implemented by
31:26
1985. This
31:29
addressed the pollution concern. But what about
31:32
flooding? Well, to
31:34
answer this, Tarp called for another 21
31:37
miles of tunnels for if the thing
31:40
floods, like if it floods, we got to have a place for it
31:43
to flood, too.
31:46
Three large reservoirs were also built.
31:50
They are still working on
31:53
the tarp plan. They are in phase two and the first
31:55
portion of that was completed in
31:57
2017.
32:00
Now they look to the McCook reservoir,
32:02
stage two, which will expand the reservoir to store
32:05
an extra 3 million gallons for a total of
32:08
6.5 million gallons
32:11
of what could very possibly be human turd.
32:14
This is good because the current
32:17
3.5 million gallon reservoir
32:19
fills almost completely in the rainy
32:22
season. There's a video of it online. I will try to post it in
32:25
the ding dong doodley dopper below. Um,
32:27
but it's wild how quickly this
32:30
large, large pit fills with
32:33
water. The M m word
32:35
still oversees this and it is
32:38
estimated they serve about twelve point
32:41
72 million people per day.
32:44
They own and oversee
32:46
560 miles of intercepting
32:49
sewers, some of which are still
32:52
the sewers built underneath the city
32:55
of Chicago when Ellis Chesborough
32:58
raised it about 10ft 100 and so years
33:01
ago.
33:04
How can Chicago
33:07
be a burgeoning city of growth,
33:10
have clean water and exist
33:13
in harmony with Lake Michigan and its other
33:16
waterways? Remember the reason
33:19
the people wanted to settle Chicago in the first
33:22
place, and have these
33:24
waterways, both as its source of clean water in its
33:27
past and the place where the waste is going to be
33:30
dumped? Well,
33:33
it is a problem that is ongoing,
33:36
and the waste management
33:40
and tarp and m word of Chicago
33:42
are working actively in the legacy
33:45
of Ellis Chesboro and others to continue to
33:48
provide safe
33:51
infrastructure and water to the people of
33:53
Chicago.
34:00
In 2004,
34:03
there was another sewer tragedy that occurred in
34:06
Chicago. In
34:09
fact, this episode
34:12
is releasing on the. The
34:14
anniversary of this horrifying event.
34:17
So with all our knowledge of the struggles in
34:20
the history of, uh, the city of Chicago and
34:23
their sewers and their water treatment and all
34:26
that the city has gone through in about 100 to
34:29
200 years of struggle for
34:32
clean water,
34:35
we must discuss. In
34:38
Chicago, you can take an
34:40
architectural boat cruise along the
34:43
Chicago river. On one of
34:46
these tours, you can see and enjoy the architecture
34:49
of more than 40 buildings and trace
34:52
the architectural history of Chicago as
34:55
you tour the city via boat.
34:58
It's a cool thing. Uh, I will admit,
35:01
when I was in Chicago in 2010, which was
35:04
after this event, and I regret
35:07
to say I did not go find these things out
35:10
then. Um, I wasn't the
35:13
bathroom person I am now. And, you know, that's
35:15
something we can all say. None of us are the
35:18
bathroom people we are today.
35:23
I don't know. There was something there, and I lost it.
35:26
But you can
35:29
take these boat tours of Chicago to learn about
35:32
the architecture. And one day,
35:35
when a tour boat passed under the Kenzie
35:38
street bridge, they got
35:40
a hopefully once in a lifetime
35:43
experience that was totally unique to any other
35:46
architectural tour,
35:49
because as their boat passed
35:52
under the Kinsey street bridge,
35:55
the Dave Matthews band tour bus
35:58
was passing over the bridge.
36:01
I should note this. Kinsey Street
36:04
Bridge is an open grate
36:08
construction so as to allow
36:11
rainfall and other fresh water
36:13
possibly to pass through. But
36:16
the trouble with this is,
36:19
as their boat passed under,
36:23
the Dave Matthews band tour bus
36:27
dumped 800 pounds of raw
36:30
human waste into the Chicago
36:33
river. The Dave Matthews
36:35
band dumped 800 pounds of
36:38
raw human waste into the Chicago
36:40
river. No weight
36:43
onto the architecture tour boat.
36:46
Below the boat,
36:49
Chicago's little lady got quite a show
36:52
that day. Absolutely
36:54
heinous. Could you imagine? You're just enjoying
36:57
yourself, uh, and you're going, oh,
37:00
man, look at the. Oh, this is the
37:03
historical site. You can see the water tower in the
37:06
distance that has provided clean water to
37:08
the city of Chicago. They don't use it anymore, I don't think,
37:11
but it's a beacon of clean
37:14
water. And right as you.
37:17
It just gets flush out.
37:20
120 people got the special treatment.
37:23
And at first, the driver and the band
37:26
denied having done so. But
37:29
security cameras, we live in an age of those
37:32
gentlemen, um, proved them
37:34
wrong. The
37:37
band paid a fine of over
37:39
$200,000. Now had to do, the, uh,
37:42
driver had to do one and a half years of community service.
37:45
And since the band has also donated
37:48
$50,000 to Chicago park district, and
37:51
to date, they have donated over
37:52
$100,000 to the city of
37:55
Chicago to better the
37:57
city. However,
38:01
eleven years after the event, in
38:03
2004, the city
38:06
posted a sign on the Kinsey street
38:08
bridge asking people to
38:11
remember the incident. Never forget.
38:14
Always remember. It
38:17
reads, in August
38:19
2004, at this very
38:21
location, a, uh, Dave Matthews band
38:24
tour bus dumped 800 pounds of
38:27
poo on some people. Hashtag never
38:29
forget. Hashtag always remember. And this
38:32
week on privy, we do always remember.
38:36
In 1996, the Dave Matthews band
38:39
released Crash into me. And in 2004,
38:42
their crap crashed into a bunch of people. In
38:45
1998, the Dave Matthews band released
38:47
Crush, and they crushed the serene
38:50
hopes of a nice architectural boat tour
38:53
of 120 people on August 8,
38:56
2004. In 1998, the
38:59
Dave Matthews brand released don't drink the
39:02
Water, and in 2004, they
39:04
contributed to Chicago not being able
39:07
to. Ellis
39:10
Chesboro would have been pissed
39:12
at Dave Matthews.
39:16
Never forget, always remember.
39:21
This brings us to the end of another
39:24
episode of Privy. I want to share something that's pretty
39:27
exciting. Uh, at the close of this episode,
39:30
we have a website. Uh, it is
39:33
privycast.com. Uh,
39:36
go check it out. You can listen to all the episodes
39:38
there, see more about what we're doing. Uh, we got
39:41
links to, uh, the wounded warriors project,
39:44
reminding you to keep pooping in the free world. But the free world
39:47
was not always free. And you can leave a rating or review.
39:50
And when you do, we will donate some money to the wounded warriors
39:53
project. But go check out the site. Feel, uh, free to
39:56
email us, privycast@gmail.com. With
39:58
thoughts, suggestions, concerns, stories,
40:01
feedback. If you want to come on the show, reach out to
40:04
us. We're on social media at Privycast.
40:07
Wherever you have that social media.
40:11
We, um, would like to thank Pottington Bear and Kevin
40:14
McLeod for the use of music this week. Thanks, Kevin
40:17
and Pottington. We would like to not thank the Dave Matthews
40:20
band for the heinous thing they did 19 years
40:22
ago. This has been another episode of
40:25
Privy. Thanks so much for joining, uh, us.
40:28
Wash your butthole, own your stank, keep pooping in the
40:31
free world. And now, as always,
40:34
don't forget to flush.