I live in Chicago about a mile from the lake and while it is pretty clean I would not drink the water right out of the lake. They occasionally issue swim bans specifically because bacteria levels in the lake are unsafe. There can be a variety of reasons for this but I would not drink untreated water from there.
That said the lakes are pretty darn clean overall except perhaps next to Gary, Indiana.
A fancy restaurant did a blind water tasting test of various fancy bottled waters a few years ago. The hands-down winner? Chicago tap water. I love Chicago water…almost all other cities I go to I dislike their water. At best it is about as good.
There are some water quality issues in the lakes, but you still get perfectly good drinking water after standard treatments. You wouldn’t want to drink unfiltered water from your reservoir, either…
I’m amused by the image of spending a couple of trillion dollars to build this canal. As soon as it’s ready they open it up and what little water there is in Santa Fe starts draining into the Great Lakes. That’d show 'em!
Boy, it’s just wasted flowing into the ocean! Mother Nature really messed up with that water cycle thingy, didn’t she? I mean, why should ships need to get from Duluth to the Atlantic anyway, right? Let’s just drain the thing for the benefit of people who want to grow tomatoes and watermelons in their Sonoran desert backyards…
No, I’m not confusing the two. Actually they are two distinct attempts at water diversion that (1) may result in an environmental disaster, and (2) that actually is an environmental disaster.
It certainly seemed you were saying that the Northern River Reversal led to the Aral Sea shrinking. Actually, now I’m not sure what your point was in linking to the Aral Sea.
As others have pointed out, it makes no sense. If energy is cheap enough to pump water that far uphill, it would be a lot easier to desalinate water and pump it from the Pacific/Sea of Cortez.
And Grand Rapids is another city that gets its drinking water from the Lakes.
I’m surprised that there has been no economic argument made FOR this yet. Yes, it’s likely an environmental disaster waiting to happen and yes, the engineering would be a ridiculous challenge, but what if our neighbours to the southwest sent trillions of dollars to the Great Lakes states and provinces?
That would pay for a lot of schools and hospitals. Keep in mind that at some volume of controlled export, the water in the Great Lakes is a renewable resource. It will keep raining and snowing up North. Also the argument against ‘wasting’ the water into the ocean is a decent one. While the water will be saltier at the mouth of the St. Lawrence, the water sent down to Phoenix will also find its way into the atmosphere and eventually make its way back to the Great Lakes.
I’m not saying it’s a good idea, but at the right price, it’s within the realm of possiblity that it would do more good than harm for the region.
Since water is already diverted from Grand Lake (headwaters of the Colorado River) under the Continental Divide via the Alva B. Adams Tunnel to Big Thompson River and the South Platter River, it would be counter-productive.
Aha…that’s the difference. I live about 200 ft from the same lake, but it’s a different same lake, 250 miles north of you.
Just in case you think I am boasting, I once did some daily water quality tests for E. coli and came up negative on all occasions – except for one. That was when some gulls were swimming around on a calm day, and I thought, if it’s going to be polluted, now is the time, and sure enuf, it was.
By the time it gets to my beach, I’m pretty sure it has become homeopathic, that is, super-potent. Guess I’d better avoid swimming when the Qadgop looms on the horizon.
The price would be too great; unaffordable. There isn’t just the up-front capital costs but also the cost of maintaining the pipelines and pumping stations for eterninty. The fuel costs alone would be staggering.
Because it’s used for drinking water. It’s used for agriculture. It’s used for industry. It’s used for transportation. It’s used for recreation. And thousands of species of plants and animals rely on the Great Lakes as an essential part of their habitat.
You want lush green golf courses, move to somewhere where it actually rains.