Bubbly Creek is the nickname given to the South Fork of the Chicago River's South Branch, which is noted for its pollution.
Originally a wetland, during the 19th century channels were dredged to increase the rate of flow into the river and dry out the area. The South Fork became an open sewer for the Chicago stockyards, especially the Union Stock Yards. Meatpackers used fat (as lard), hides and flesh (as meat), but blood and entrails usually found their way into the nearest river.[1] The creek received so much blood and offal that it began to bubble methane and hydrogen sulfide gas from the products of decomposition.[2]. Two heavily polluted streams that joined to create the south fork were filled in, and their courses can still be seen today in the configuration of streets and rail lines in the area. By the 1990s the only living metazoans in the creek were huge numbers of bloodworms feeding on the estimated two meters of rotting blood in the bed of the hypoxic creek[3].
The creek has remained toxic to the present day; as late as 1950, a resident remembers the air being "rancid". Some wildlife and vegetation has returned in recent decades, and the area has been increasingly occupied by residential development such as Bridgeport Village. Areas near the creek have been designated for recreational uses including parks, and developers and the city agreed on a 60-foot setback to allow for remediation.[4]
A program to oxygenate the water by continuously injecting compressed air into the creek has met with limited success, so that the creek's odor and bloodworm population is much reduced, and fish now venture there[citation needed].
As of 2007, the City of Chicago and the Army Corps of Engineers are considering a $2.65 million feasibility study to look at restoration options, which would have implications for the remainder of the Chicago River system due to the unusual challenges of Bubbly Creek. The creek's waters are largely stagnant, having little gravitational flow, but the study will look into possibilities including a meandering stream amid a wetland to restore an oxygenated system.[4]
References
- ^ Grossman, James R., Ann Durkin Keating and Janice L. Ruff (eds.), Encyclopedia of Chicago, "Meatpacking", pp. 515-7, University of Chicago Press, 2004, ISBN 0-226-31015-9
- ^ Upton Sinclair (1906). The Jungle. "Bubbly Creek" is an arm of the Chicago River, and forms the southern boundary of the Union Stock Yards; all the drainage of the square mile of packing-houses empties into it, so that it is really a great open sewer a hundred or two feet wide. One long arm of it is blind, and the filth stays there forever and a day. The grease and chemicals that are poured into it undergo all sorts of strange transformations, which are the cause of its name; it is constantly in motion, as if huge fish were feeding in it, or great leviathans disporting themselves in its depths. Bubbles of carbonic gas will rise to the surface and burst, and make rings two or three feet wide. Here and there the grease and filth have caked solid, and the creek looks like a bed of lava; chickens walk about on it, feeding, and many times an unwary stranger has started to stroll across, and vanished temporarily. The packers used to leave the creek that way, till every now and then the surface would catch on fire and burn furiously, and the fire department would have to come and put it out. Once, however, an ingenious stranger came and started to gather this filth in scows, to make lard out of; then the packers took the cue, and got out an injunction to stop him, and afterwards gathered it themselves. The banks of "Bubbly Creek" are plastered thick with hairs, and this also the packers gather and clean.
- ^ http://www.wetlands-initiative.org/BubblyCreek.html
- ^ a b "New hope for sullied creek". Chicago Tribune.
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