June 28, 2008

Chicago: Making Less Of Its Own Gravy When It Rains

Let me conjure up a visceral image for you – runoff rainwater in an alley in Chicago. Your reaction is probably “Ech.” Well, even after this program to create “green” alleys you probably still wouldn’t drink it. But at least it will be a little bit cleaner when it runs off into Lake Michigan. Kudos to Chicago for taking on a scarcely-noticed problem – even if it is a little bit slow (they’ve only done 40 alleys and only allocated funds for 48 more; I suspect there are substantially more than 98 alleys in the city of Chicago).

1 comment:

Mike Sullivan said...

The water doesn't runoff. The material is permeable, so the water is filtered through the material and the ground and eventually reaches Lake Michigan underground.