we can't let the collapse of civilization stop us from making the river look polluteder
https://twitter.com/Kathryn18132857/status/1371173477391171588
If this tweet is correct the stuff they used is vegetable dye (presumably biodegradable, therefore safe), and they've been doing this since the 1960s. This IS normal for Chicagoans. The fact that the news anchor felt no need to explain what the dye is and address concerns whether it's safe means their local Chicago-area audience is expected to be familiar with this ritual.
No such clue on if it's safe or not, for the environment. A flood of simple elements like nitrogen can cause huge algae blooms that fall to the bed, dead, draining the water of oxygen. That's why the gulf of Mexico has the huge death zone.
yea this is like the "don't worry it's BPA free" moms who buy stuff that's just loaded with BPS instead
Cool, that certainly explains the melodramatic takes responding to it instead of taking a second to try to learn more about it
And the Bucyrus Bratwurst Festival is an incredibly local tradition. Chicago is the second most culturally influential city in the US. It's not hard to learn about this
Chicago is the second most culturally influential city in the US.
DOUBT!!
-Soulja
I was scrolling through all this and so confused at the upset, then I realized that I grew up not far away and knew it was normal. One of those things that you think everyone knows about until suddenly everyone is mad. 🤷♀️
I've heard of it too, although I still think even if it's not bad for the environment it's kind of a weird/potentially wasteful tradition.
The fact that it's not environmentally harmful doesn't make it not stupid.
If this shit had been done to the Charles river I'd agree with you. Does Chicago even have any significant Irish diaspora living there or is this just the usual WASP/American-mutt appropriation of the sort of Irish diaspora culture more commonplace in New England/New York that happens around St. Patrick's Day?
There used to be a fairly significant Irish population in Chicago but it's really plummeted, especially in the last 30ish years. "Southside Irish" is a thing but a lot of white flight has occurred since Chicago uses the Southside to segregate minority communities. Plus the further generations get from when their families originally immigrated, the less they identify as Irish unless it's St. Patrick's Day.
Not to mention, Irish like the Daley family have historically run Chicago
They’re still around, mostly moved to the suburbs like the Ital*ans though.
They do this like every year, also it's biodegradable and basically only on the surface. Definitely a weird waste, but it's not any worse than the regular garbage that goes in there from roads on a daily basis
The surprise wasn't the dyeing, it was that they were doing it this year with covid.
This has to be an Onion bit. No way the Chicago local government is that impulsive and short-sighted. I refuse to believe this is real.
I'm watching the NBC news and the live on-site reporter is attributing this to "that sneaky, sneaky plumbers' union". Was this even their decision?? Did everyone involved assume this was just harmless food dye or something? That's the only scenario I can imagine in which this isn't utterly horrifying.
UPDATE: Yes, they do assume it's a harmless food dye.
It's a tradition. The dye was/is used to check for leaks in buildings by flushing the pipes with it and checking for green in the river. I don't really see how it could be any worse than city runoff and apparently the green coloration is from a reaction with pollution in the river because the powder is initially orange.
For years it was some retired cop, but this year it was a plumbers union. So critical support for our union comrades doing something that most people seem to enjoy.
So critical support for ... doing something that most people seem to enjoy.
not hating things? in my chapo?
No objections if it's actually harmless. But holy shit is it unsettlingly weird and American in the most garish way possible.
It's definitely unsettling lol, it's kinda weird how is only a few people that do it. Like for 60 years it was just one dude and his immediate family doing it with 2 boats, one with people sifting the dye in with flour sifters and another following to churn it up.
Wild how something that seems so massive in scale is done by such a small group.
The studio anchor at the end of the video: "this feels like a semblance of normalcy."
THIS IS A CORPORATE LOCAL MEDIA MOUTHPIECE'S IDEA OF NORMALCY WHAT THE FUCK
Matt Christman was right. These suburban white people would destroy the world to save fucking Applebee's.
UPDATE: Not that this isn't a fucking weird thing to do in line with the homogenization of all American culture, but apparently it is normal (annual even!) and assumed to be safe.
Oh dear god. They are that impulsive. They are that short-sighted. This is consistent with ruling-class inaction on GHG emissions and plastic pollution, with the use of neonicotinoid pesticides which threaten bee populations.Did they not put any thought into the long-term effects of this, or do they simply not give a shit? What is the dye made of? How do people not slowly go insane learning about this kind of shit?Have these people just fucking given up on the pretense of long-term sustainability after Trump, Bolsonaro, etc. set the tone for future environment/climate (in)action?UPDATE: the dye is reported to be vegetable dye. I and most of the rest of the thread may have overrreacted.
They assume it's harmless. It probably has an effect, whatever it breaks down to. Ecosystems can react strongly to floods of nutrients or other material.
From Chicago, the health of the river has seen huge improvements the last few decades. I saw a state endangered hanging out on one of the floating gardens. The whole history of the river is fascinating.
Edit: totally forgot River Otters were seen in the river recently. The presence of otters indicates the health of an ecosystem. Sorry to add some sunshine on everyone’s rainy day parade.
Can you guys bring over some of that healthy ecosystem shit to the Los Angeles River
We really fucked things up
I started reading this book on the environmental history of Los Angeles and I’m about to read the chapter on the river. I don’t understand how Los Angeles even functions lmao.
The LA River didn't even use to have a "mouth" it just evenly distributed itself over the entire LA river basin
At least it's not on fire like that other river in Ohio. Improvement?
https://twitter.com/AtlanticFyoo/status/1370778036187103236
A few Chicagoans have gotten quite defensive in response to this guy's question about the dye's environmental impact lol.
lol someone asks "do you really think the city would do it if it was harming the environment?" yes, yes i do
Literally hacking a lung after my city's third fireworks display of the year. But no, they'd never create a toxic mess just for a cheap celebratory photo op.
Here's the thing that you'll learn about Chicago if you live here long enough; the pride parade is mostly non gays getting shitfaced and the St. Patrick's nonsense is mostly non Irish getting shitfaced.
A few things from an Irish perspective:
It is not St Patrick's Day. People in Ireland have not started Patrick's Day celebrations.
Most Irish people do not think highly of Irish americans. A popular nickname for them is "plastic paddy", because they have no real sense of Irish culture but cling on to their ancestry in ways that english, german americans etc do not.
Nobody in Ireland goes this far for Patrick's Day. We have parades in just about every town, we have food stands and lots and lots of drinking, but we don't just throw the colour green everywhere.
America is weird. Chicago is weird.
as someone who delights in shitting on Italian-American "traditions", they are only slightly less embarrassing than Irish-American traditions, which basically include dyeing this river in march, saying the hard R n-word more than anyone else, being cops, and doing everything they can to ensure that every symbol of irish identity (the clover, the harp, etc) can be traced to active, ultraviolent white supremacist organizations like the Aryan Brotherhood.
I say this as someone whose grandparents were 1st gen US born of immigrants from like supposedly ulster, though nobody really knows because everybody was really into violent drinking, beating the shit out of their kids, lying constantly, religious excitation, and dying young.
between all these cool hobbies, nobody had any time for like keeping track of paperwork or documents or anything prior to my great grandparents. my personal theory is that they were pariahs even among the other irish immigrants, so probably overzealous and overstupid land agents that overstepped and got cut loose with little to show for a life of bootkissing.
everybody was really into violent drinking, beating the shit out of their kids, lying constantly, religious excitation, and dying young
Why is it "being ethnically European" has all the same hallmarks as "sever lead poisoning"
Did anyone ask the fish for consent to turn transform their world into a sickly fluorescent green?
We've been doing this long before any fish had the audacity to return to the Chicago River
Bit idea: Irish versions of the 10 plagues of Egypt visited upon US cities.
Dying during your commute because it starts raining shillelaghs
all I can think of looking at this polluted water is CANCER CANCER CANCER CANCER
