Althouse: "Restoring continental divide in Chicago would be costly, complex."

December 17, 2012

"Restoring continental divide in Chicago would be costly, complex."

"If 110 years ago, from an engineering and financing standpoint, we could dig this huge canal and reverse (the river), 110 years later, with all the advances in technology, we certainly could undo what we have done."

19 comments:

madAsHell said...: It's easier to break windows.; 12/17/12, 7:50 AM
Aridog said...: Yes, engineers reversed the Chicago River flow long ago, to the point where it can be reversed at will now. Time to end that, just like engineers are reversing their efforts drain Florida completely and today are spending billions to restore "sheet flow" in to the Everglades.

Do it now. Let's see the liberal greenies object to a "green" project that doesn't line their pockets.; 12/17/12, 7:55 AM
MadisonMan said...: It cost them $2M to figure this out.

That seems like a high price tag.; 12/17/12, 8:08 AM
Automatic_Wing said...: Seems incredibly complex and expensive.

Are carp really that bad?; 12/17/12, 8:12 AM
Automatic_Wing said...: Also, it's a fallacy to say "We did x in 1880, therefore we can undo it today". That's way too facile, a lot has happened since then.; 12/17/12, 8:17 AM
Craig said...: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/landon-jones/earthquake-new-madrid_b_934803.html; 12/17/12, 8:22 AM
Eric the Fruit Bat said...: The idea is to make employment for all the surplus soldiers and law enforcement officers.; 12/17/12, 8:40 AM
Hagar said...: @Aridog,

The CoE's personal or professional opinions have little or nothing to do with what get built.; 12/17/12, 8:42 AM
Astro said...: Looks like it's overdo to be straightened out. The river in that picture is at an awfully funny angle...; 12/17/12, 8:45 AM
bagoh20 said...: We can no longer do anything we used to do. We simply have voluntarily made everything too complicated and expensive. Mandated high wages, unions, a labyrinth of regulation, and no room for innovation, or free thinking on a project. Today we could never go to the moon, build the highway system, the sewer systems, the railways or the airports we used to do with ease, often under budget, and ahead of time. When was the last time anything came in under budget or on time? Hell, when was the last time anything even worked as sold? That's why there are no shovel ready jobs - it takes years and millions of dollars to decide which shovel to use, and nobody is really excited about ever seeing it done in their lifetime.; 12/17/12, 9:28 AM
Aridog said...: Hagar said...

@Aridog,...The CoE's personal or professional opinions have little or nothing to do with what get built.

Very aware of that... was inferring as much with my "greenie" remark. Nothing gets done by USACE or BLM without copious pocket lining irrespective of any environmental benefit or lack thereof.; 12/17/12, 9:46 AM
edutcher said...: I get the feeling this will eventually come under the heading, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it".; 12/17/12, 10:17 AM
Rusty said...: Mitchell the Bat said...
The idea is to make employment for all the surplus soldiers and law enforcement officers.

Close.
This is Illinois.
This is designed to make employment for the friends and relatives of Illinois politicians.; 12/17/12, 10:19 AM
Methadras said...: MadisonMan said...

It cost them $2M to figure this out.

That seems like a high price tag.

Pfff, this is nothing. Come to California where they spent untold millions on the study for the high speed rail through the central valley, where only illegal aliens, farmers, and cattle ranchers are, to put a choo-choo through it, then to put it to a vote of the people stating what the cost, have them vote it in, to have the state government only afterwards tell us that it will cost 5 times that amount. YAY CHOO-CHOO that no one will ride.; 12/17/12, 12:43 PM
Sam L. said...: bagoh20, it's not that we can't do, it's that there's a group of groups working to actively prevent us from doing.; 12/17/12, 1:06 PM
Aridog said...: Methadras said...

Pfff, this is nothing. Come to California where they spent untold millions on the study for the high speed rail through the central valley, where only illegal aliens, farmers, and cattle ranchers are ...

Pshaw...I'm shocked at you. Why you'd deprive those *undocumented foreign visitors* of a ride between gardening and yard upkeep jobs in northern and southern Californication between harvest seasons.

Y'all jess haz no heart, ah tell you. What's a few billion here or there...Gov Moonbeam will fix it. I'm sure of it. Maybe. Well, no.; 12/17/12, 1:55 PM
Aridog said...: Oh, and that river reversing shit in Chicago? That was a sewage removal project, so's Chicago garbage and shit didn't float out the mouth of the Chicago River and soil their pristine beaches. It is even named a "Sanitation Canal".

Chicago figured the folks down stream in the Mississippi drainage deserved their effluent. Later came the barge traffic and the pocket lining enterprises it created...then came the fricking gymnastic carp upstream to wreck the Great Lakes.

Close and weld shut the gates on the Chicago river until they spend a billion or so to develop a real plan and get all the politicians greased. Oh, Boo-Hoo...you can't get your widdle yachtie poo out on to Lake Michigan? Sob...fine, cruise down to the Mississippi with the sewage and flying fishies bitches.; 12/17/12, 2:06 PM
ken in tx said...: They should adopt policies to develop a fishing industry to exploit the carp. The Chinese consider them a delicacy.
They don't understand why we consider this a problem. Maybe we could export them.; 12/18/12, 8:51 AM
Aridog said...: ken in sc said...

They should adopt policies to develop a fishing industry to exploit the carp.

Unfortunately that idea is precisely how the problem developed. Fish farmers introduced them and floods released them in to the wild waters. NO carp is native to the continental United States...all were imported for farming and have escaped. The Silver Carp (the high jumpers) and Big Head Carp are merely the most recent aquaculture misadventures.

I expect sometime soon some diligent delta bred idiot of a fish farmer will discover a market for shark meat...and farm Bull Sharks because they can survive both salt and fresh water. Just what we need escaping to the Great Lakes, eh? :-)); 12/18/12, 9:02 AM