A longtime poster child for pollution, the Chicago River has seen considerable improvement in recent years. Around 70 fish species can now be found in the river, where only a handful used to survive. Even river otters have been spotted again after roughly years. Chicagoans are unlikely to forfeit their electric green river this March or any St.
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North Carolina. Puerto Rico. United States. Top Cities View All Destinations. Buenos Aires. Dallas-Fort Worth. Mexico City. Trending Regions. Trending Cities. No holiday or public festivity is likely more associated with one color than St. Green hats, green shamrocks, and green beer.
And green water. How did this come about? Green dye was originally put in the Chicago River as a contaminant tracker. The St. Perhaps inspired by the unsuccessful attempt in Savannah, Georgia to dye its river green, the Chicago union group dumped pounds of the dye into the river for the St.
The exact formula, ratio, and chemical used in the dye has changed many times. The dye used in the s was disodium salt, an oil-based fluorescein that environmentalists argued would harm the river severely, despite its previous use as a tracking agent for preventing further pollution and sewage leaks.
The fluorescein dye was certifiably harmful to the environment, as recent tests on snail and mollusk populations in the Bliss Rapids region of Idaho demonstrate: they were exposed to tracer levels of fluorescein dye for 24 hour periods, and then tested for accumulation and detrimental effects. The conclusion was that mg L -1 is the median lethal concentration for the Ashy Pebble snail, indicating a present, albeit low, risk to the mollusk populations resulting from just nearby groundwater testing and dye tracing applications.
Fortunately, the use of this fluorescein dye was discontinued in , when mounting concerns forced the responsible committee to find an alternative dye option that would cause less controversy. But what about the dye that is currently used? Does it stand up to in-depth scrutiny?
I began investigating these questions for a research paper in Dr. The current dye is a vegetable-based powdered dye, orange in color until it is mixed into the water. It is a forty to sixty pound mixture that keeps the river green for about five to six hours. It has to be approved by the Environmental Protection Agency and fulfill NSF standard 60 requirements, allowing it to be added to potable drinking water without negative effects to human or biome.
While the move to a vegetable-based dye is undoubtedly a good thing for the ecosystem of the Chicago River, it forces us to ask if the addition of any chemical to a river simply for celebration is something we want to promote as environmental stewards? While the exact ingrediants of this dye is unknown, over the years, the subject does keep coming up around this time of the year, whether it is toxic or not. According to City Officials and the Spokesman for the St. But not this one.
The Vegetable Dye used since takes about 40 lbs. That amount will transform the river to a beautiful Emerald Green. The first very first year of river-dyeing, the boat crew used the Fluorescein Dye that was switched. That dye kept the river green for nearly a month and caused an outcry from the city. The new vegetable base Dye that was substituted in , needed to be adjusted again. It was adjusted down to about 40 pounds to get the job done and that is how much they use today.
At 9 am the Saturday morning before St. The crews use paper Hazmat suits and 2 sets of gloves, rubber and cotton to transfer the Dye into one of the boats. A fourth man from the crew will motor a small board boat out with them. They will make their way out to the locks at the entrance of the river to Lake Michigan to gauge the current of the water.
And, by 11 a. The Leprechaun Dust is coffee-canned out by one of the crew and applied to the river by a flour sifter. As he does this a second crew member on the same boat uses a second sifter and starts to add his portion of dye. Just like a big cake mixer. Bailey who was a personal buddy of the Mayor Richard Daly was an extravagant Irishman who had other ideas for his favorite holiday like Painting the Wrigley Building green for a day but the owners nixed the idea.
He also said that the Chicago River was not his first idea for dying water green but Lake Michigan was his first choice. The Chicago River is Green. Remember the powder is orange until it is mixed with water, then turns green. All this for a 45 minutes of work and 4 or 5 hours that the green dye last in the water. Some sparkling Emerald Color green to go along with some green beer and another St.
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