green river

pic from whateverland.com
St. Patrick's DAY? That's for amateurs. In Chicago St. Patrick's runs all week.

To kick things off, they dye the river green.

Near as I can tell, noone knows how they do it.

The story I heard was that the Plumber's Union owns the task, and they're careful with the secret. It's passed down to just a few knowing souls. There is a known substance that plumbers use that turns the water in pipes green so they can track its egress -- the best guesses pin it on this. But the plumbers aren't talking.

Having emigrated from West of the Mississippi where an environmental impact statement is required to build a doghouse, every year I expect the uproar: someone to speak out and complain and demand that we identify what's going into the water and whether or not it's going to hurt anything downstream.

Make that upstream: Many years ago Chicagoans decided they would change the way the river flows. It's been flowing upstream ever since.

And I haven't heard anyone complain about it yet. Or about the green river.

Whateverland.com has posted pics for the curious »