The Illinois River is a principal tributary of the Mississippi River and is approximately 273 miles (439 km) long. Located in the U.S. state of Illinois, it has a drainage basin of 28,756.6 square miles (74,479 km2). The Illinois River begins at the confluence of the Des Plaines and Kankakee rivers in the Chicago metropolitan area, and it generally flows to the southwest across Illinois, until it empties into the Mississippi near Grafton, Illinois. Its drainage basin extends into southeastern Wisconsin, northwestern Indiana, and a very small area of southwestern Michigan in addition to central Illinois. Along its shores are several ports, including Peoria, Illinois.
Sewerage is the infrastructure that conveys sewage or surface runoff using sewers. It encompasses components such as receiving drains, manholes, pumping stations, storm overflows, and screening chambers of the combined sewer or sanitary sewer. Sewerage ends at the entry to a sewage treatment plant or at the point of discharge into the environment. It is the system of pipes, chambers, manholes, etc. that conveys the sewage or storm water.
Water pollution is the contamination of water bodies, usually as a result of human activities, so that it negatively affects its uses. Water bodies include lakes, rivers, oceans, aquifers, reservoirs and groundwater. Water pollution results when contaminants mix with these water bodies. Contaminants can come from one of four main sources: sewage discharges, industrial activities, agricultural activities, and urban runoff including stormwater. Water pollution is either surface water pollution or groundwater pollution. This form of pollution can lead to many problems, such as the degradation of aquatic ecosystems or spreading water-borne diseases when people use polluted water for drinking or irrigation. Another problem is that water pollution reduces the ecosystem services that the water resource would otherwise provide.
A manhole cover or maintenance hole cover is a removable plate forming the lid over the opening of a manhole, an opening large enough for a person to pass through that is used as an access point for an underground vault or pipe. It is designed to prevent anyone or anything from falling in, and to keep out unauthorized persons and material.
A sanitary sewer is an underground pipe or tunnel system for transporting sewage from houses and commercial buildings to a sewage treatment plant or disposal. Sanitary sewers are a type of gravity sewer and are part of an overall system called a "sewage system" or sewerage. Sanitary sewers serving industrial areas may also carry industrial wastewater. In municipalities served by sanitary sewers, separate storm drains may convey surface runoff directly to surface waters. An advantage of sanitary sewer systems is that they avoid combined sewer overflows. Sanitary sewers are typically much smaller in diameter than combined sewers which also transport urban runoff. Backups of raw sewage can occur if excessive stormwater inflow or groundwater infiltration occurs due to leaking joints, defective pipes etc. in aging infrastructure.
A storm drain, storm sewer, surface water drain/sewer, or stormwater drain is infrastructure designed to drain excess rain and ground water from impervious surfaces such as paved streets, car parks, parking lots, footpaths, sidewalks, and roofs. Storm drains vary in design from small residential dry wells to large municipal systems.
The Cloaca Maxima was one of the world's earliest sewage systems. Its name derives from Cloacina, a Roman goddess. Built during either the Roman Kingdom or early Roman Republic, it was constructed in Ancient Rome in order to drain local marshes and remove waste from the city. It carried effluent to the River Tiber, which ran beside the city. The sewer started at the Forum Augustum and ended at the Ponte Rotto and Ponte Palatino. It began as an open air canal, but it developed into a much larger sewer over the course of time. Agrippa renovated and reconstructed much of the sewer. This would not be the only development in the sewers. By the first century CE all eleven Roman aqueducts were connected to the sewer. After the Roman Empire fell the sewer still was used. By the 1800s it became a tourist attraction. Some parts of the sewer are still used today. Whilst still being used it was highly valued as a sacred symbol of Roman culture, and Roman engineering.
Cesspit, cesspool and soak pit in some contexts are terms with various meanings: they are used to describe either an underground holding tank or a soak pit. A cesspit can be used for the temporary collection and storage of feces, excreta or fecal sludge as part of an on-site sanitation system and has some similarities with septic tanks or with soak pits. Traditionally, it was a deep cylindrical chamber dug into the ground, having approximate dimensions of 1 metre (3') diameter and 2–3 metres depth. Their appearance was similar to that of a hand-dug water well.
The Cleveland East Ohio Gas explosion occurred on the afternoon of Friday, October 20, 1944. The resulting gas leak, explosion and fires killed 131 people and destroyed a one-square-mile area of the east side of Cleveland, Ohio.
Sewer gas is a complex, generally obnoxious smelling mixture of toxic and nontoxic gases produced and collected in sewage systems by the decomposition of organic household or industrial wastes, typical components of sewage.
A combined sewer is a type of gravity sewer with a system of pipes, tunnels, pump stations etc. to transport sewage and urban runoff together to a sewage treatment plant or disposal site. This means that during rain events, the sewage gets diluted, resulting in higher flowrates at the treatment site. Uncontaminated stormwater simply dilutes sewage, but runoff may dissolve or suspend virtually anything it contacts on roofs, streets, and storage yards. As rainfall travels over roofs and the ground, it may pick up various contaminants including soil particles and other sediment, heavy metals, organic compounds, animal waste, and oil and grease. Combined sewers may also receive dry weather drainage from landscape irrigation, construction dewatering, and washing buildings and sidewalks.
John Phillips was a British engineer and surveyor in the first half of the 19th century. His work and reports led to the building of London's sewage system.
A series of ten explosions took place on April 22, 1992, in the downtown district of Analco Colonia Atlas in Guadalajara city, Jalisco state, Mexico. Numerous gasoline explosions in the sewer system and fires over four hours destroyed 8 kilometres (5.0 mi) of streets. Gante Street was the most damaged. By the accounting of Lloyd's of London, the reported number of people killed was about 252, although many estimate that the catastrophe actually caused at least 1,000 deaths. About 500 to 600 people were missing, nearly 500 were injured and 15,000 were left homeless. The estimated monetary damage ranges between $300 million and $3 billion. The affected areas can be recognized by the more modern architecture in the areas that were destroyed.
On February 13, 1981, a series of explosions destroyed more than 13 miles (21 km) of sewer lines and streets in the center of Louisville in Kentucky, United States. The explosions resulted in extensive damage to property and infrastructure; there were no fatalities, but four people were injured.
Water pollution in the United States is a growing problem that became critical in the 19th century with the development of mechanized agriculture, mining, and industry, although laws and regulations introduced in the late 20th century have improved water quality in many water bodies. Extensive industrialization and rapid urban growth exacerbated water pollution as a lack of regulation allowed for discharges of sewage, toxic chemicals, nutrients and other pollutants into surface water.
The history of water supply and sanitation is one of a logistical challenge to provide clean water and sanitation systems since the dawn of civilization. Where water resources, infrastructure or sanitation systems were insufficient, diseases spread and people fell sick or died prematurely.
Ellis Sylvester Chesbrough (1813–1886) was an engineer credited with the design of the Chicago sewer system, which are sometimes known as the 'Chesbrough sewers'. This was the first comprehensive sewer system in the United States. He is responsible for the plan to raise Chicago, construction of the first water crib in Chicago, and designing the Boston water distribution system. The water system he designed for Chicago is on the National Register of Historic Places and has been designated a Historical Civil Engineering Landmark by the American Society of Civil Engineers.
Ever since Chicago was incorporated as a city in 1837, it has faced multiple issues concerning water quality to accommodate its growing size, driven by the city's ideal geography and accessibility to one of the largest bodies of fresh water, the Great Lakes. The City of Chicago has implemented multiple proposals and plans such as the Master Drainage Plan and Tunnel and Reservoir Plan to combat the increasing water quality issue and move in a more environmentally friendly direction. These plans will construct spillways to temporarily store overfilling sewage or stormwater and clean it before releasing it. However, it wasn't until 2015 that Chicago began to treat sewage and stormwater runoff, thus finally shedding its title as the last major city not to treat its sewage before being discharged into its waterways.
The Paramount Hotel explosion occurred on January 28, 1966, in Boston. A series of explosions under the hotel and resulting fires killed 11 people.
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