Two years ago, The Field Museum created Before the Faucet, After the Flush to tie-in their Water exhibition to Chicago’s unique water system. The video gives a great overview of our region’s water and sewer system, including some fascinating facts.
WOWW Factors!
- Chicagoans use enough water every day to fill the Sears Tower two and a half times
- Lake Michigan contains 4% of the world’s unfrozen, surface freshwater
- The James W. Jardine plant treats 1 million gallons of water from Lake Michigan per minute
- Only eight hours after entering the plant, water is ready to drink
- 4,000 miles of pipe deliver the purified water to 5.5 million people
- 1.3 billion gallons of wastewater is funneled each day to seven treatment plants
- One million pounds of biosolids (settled solids rich in organic matter) are created every day through the water purification process
