That is funny that you should mention that. Every year or two when we have one of those "100 year rains", the city of Chicago opens their "Deep Tunnel" that runs from its western suburbs into a waste canal, but has a hatch into Lake Michigan. That tunnel is absolutely huge in diameter. When I lived and worked downtown Chicago decades ago, there was a huge rain that caused them to open the gate into Lake Michigan for what they said was four seconds to relieve pressure from sewer water that has waste sewers dumping into them...and let out an astounding several BILLION gallons of waste, raw sewage into Lake Michigan. Now, if you ever saw this tunnel, there is no way that gate can be opened and closed in 4 seconds as the city of Chicago told the news papers, but you can see how once opened while full, they could let out BILLIONS in waste water before it gets closed.
The city of Chicago has done that several times that I'm aware of, and after they do it, beaches in Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin get shutdown because of "ecoli" outbreaks, and no one ever questions why these outbreaks always seem to coincide with releasing BILLIONS of gallons of raw sewage into Lake Michigan. And a year or two ago there was even a front page picture in the Chicago Tribune showing a lady standing on a beach getting ready to dive into Lake Michigan to train for the Chicago Triathon standing ringht next to a human turd that had washed up into the sand. One can search the online version of the Trib, its there.
Now in Indiana, Hammond I think, is a BP Amoco refinery or chemical plant that dumps something way out into Lake Michigan that they probably should not, but the EPA says that they can, and whatever it is that they are dumping is far below the allowed legal levels. A year or two ago, BP announced that they were going to increase the amount that they would be dumping, and that it was still below allowed levels, and the EPA confirmed that it was, BUT Mayor Daley in Chicago got word of it and went nuts. It got so bad that the Attorney General of Illinois, Lisa Madigan said that she would sue BP Amoco on behalf of Illinois, so I wrote her a letter, giving her plenty of information, facts, links to photos, etc of the city of Chicago contaminating Lake Michigan for not only surrounding states, but also Illinois suburbs that get their drinking water out of Lake Michigan and asked her is she intended to sue the city of Chicago. She had one of her staffers write me back telling me NO. Her father, Michael is the head of the Illinois state Senate or House, and for her to do the right thing and sue the city of Chicago would be the end of her political career, and there is no way that will happen.
Funny is that a couple of years ago, the city of Chicago called the EPA on either Milwaukee or Kenosha Wisconsin because they too opened their sewers into Lake Michigan to relive pressure, but nowhere near what Chicago does, BILLIONS of gallons of raw sewage everytime it opens its deep tunnel into lake Michigan.
Mark
Photos Chicago Deep Tunnel Massive