Chicago's Bubbly Creek Still Mired in the Muck

From the June 26, 2015, Chicago Tribune "Bubbly Creek too mired in the muck" by Ted Gregory.

It is still there, that creek of infamy which flowed from the Chicago Stockyards of yore and was extremely smelly and notorious.  I personally thought it had been covered up.

Plans for a $15.4 million restoration of the notorious waterway have stalled while the Environmental Protection Agency determines the extent of water and sediment contamination.

But contaminants have been found in the sediment.

Bubbly Creek is a 1.25-mile long backwater of the South Branch of the Chicago River that runs primarily through Bridgeport.  The bubbles of its name refer to gas escaping from animal carcasses and other mateerial dumped into the creek over the decades from the nearby Union Stockyards., which opened in 1865 and closed in 1971.

The creek achieved fame, well infamy, in Upton Sinclair's novel, "The Jungle."  There it was described as an "open sewer" where bubbles of gas made rings of up to three feet wide.

Not a Good Swimming Hole.  --RoadDog