First Action: When the S**t Hits the Beach
It’s high time I stop dilly-dallying and actually do what this blog’s about: Me climbing out of my groundhog burrow and taking action on climate change. But I just want to go the beach. I mean, it’s so hot!
It is my God-given right as a Philadelphian to go “down the shore” for the splashing-crashing Jersey surf, the swooping gulls and scampering crabs hiding under shells, and the buffed-up bodies hiding very little. The primary motivation, of course, is to cool off in this summer’s record-breaking heat. My city is now as hot as Atlanta back when I was in high school (and Atlanta’s as hot as Tampa, and so on . . . ). The summer haze over Philly is further motivation, a taste of particulate matter from massive wildfires in the West.
Hmmm. I guess my beach privilege is no escape from climate change. I’d better get to work after all, and why not take my first stand (swim?) here. But how?
Water, water is everywhere in the news now, and all of this excess is likely driven by climate change. Unprecedented rains in Germany and China, with thousand-year floods and enormous loss of property. Beachfront residences so threatened by up-and-coming ocean waters that developers are seeking higher ground in low-income neighborhoods, giving rise to a new term, “climate gentrification.” I chose as my first, albeit modest, political act to address something a little less obvious, something that would ruin your weekend but probably not bring climate change to mind. I’m talking about sewage-on-the-beach.
I was inspired by two sources: A fabulous front-page story in the Sunday New York Times, by Dan Egan and Lyndon French, and a website by the activist group Penn Environment. I found the latter while looking for a juicy climate action item, and organizations like this make it easy to do something. With just a couple of clicks you can submit a form letter to a policymaker. I chose to aim slightly higher and write my own letters (I said this was modest). More on my correspondence in a moment, but first, what exactly is this beachy climate-stench connection?
The great city of Chicago, dear to my heart because I grew up not so far away, is famous for its Herculean efforts to save the wonderful lakeshore — and drinking water — from millions of flushing toilets. I defer to the Times article and a section from Elizabeth Kolbert’s brilliant new book, Under a White Sky, to share the entire fascinating story. The highlight is undoubtedly the total reversal of the Chicago River to make it cross the continental divide. OK, not that continental divide, but an imperceptible rise in the Illinois prairie separating the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River watershed and the vast Mississippi River Basin. Being on the east side of the divide, the Chicago River naturally runs into Lake Michigan. And quite naturally, all of the urban waste from the growing metropolis in the 19th century ended up in the river, which passed it on to the lake, right there at Lake Shore Drive and Wacker.
Since Lake Michigan was the source of water and recreation for the city (and nobody likes cholera) something had to be done. A devastating storm in 1885 ultimately provoked a huge public works project: Dig a 28-mile canal at a grade below Lake Michigan, thus enticing the river to head west to the Des Plaines, the Illinois, and eventually the Mississippi River. It was a massive project that removed enough dirt to cover a square mile to a height of over fifty feet, in fact a dress-rehearsal for constructing the Panama Canal. In January of 1900 the river was finally reversed and the secretions of the Second City flowed away from the lake. Problem solved!
But nobody planned for climate change at the turn of the century. Even in its early days the system would occasionally be overwhelmed by heavy rains, and the swollen river would be purposely released, or overflow of its own accord, into Lake Michigan. The street drainage and untreated sewage, which run together in the so-called “combined” sewer system here, also pour into the river when capacity is exceeded, and thus contaminate the lake. This emergency release is termed “Combined Sewer Overflow” or CSO. It’s actually supposed to happen.
As you might imagine, the extreme storms and generally increased rainfall accompanying climate change make these breaches much more frequent and severe, even with multi-billion-gallon reservoirs and tunnels built through the years to store excess water. Add to this crazy, erratic patterns in Lake Michigan’s water level due to complex interactions of warming temperatures and ice formation on the lake, and you have a recipe for totally uncontrollable and unpredictable cascades into and out of Lake Michigan. In May of 2020, record rainfall sent the river more than five feet above ground level, not only contaminating the lake and its beaches, but flooding Wacker Drive and cutting off power to the Willis (formerly Sears) Tower.
This situation is not unique to Chicago. Over 850 U.S. cities utilize CSO when excess rain events occur. It made sense back in pre-warming days with less frequent and heavy rains. But now overflows are much more frequent, and shore contamination is widespread. A report by Penn Environment and The Frontier Company looked at 3,000 beaches in the U.S. last year, and found that 1 in 10 were unsafe due to fecal contamination for more than 25% of the days tested. Outdated sewage systems just can’t handle the brave new world we’ve created.
Remember, this wild weather is not the “new normal,” but on its way to worse weather, even if our most ambitious greenhouse-gas reductions take place. So we not only need mitigation (preventing the causes of climate change and limiting temperature rise), but also adaptation (making changes to successfully live in the new environment). Penn Environment’s “Safe for Swimming” campaign focuses on the adaptation part, urging lawmakers to include substantial funding for water/sewer facility improvement in the infrastructure bills currently being debated. The spending should pay for not just giant concrete cisterns and taller gates, but wetland augmentation and protection, rain gardens, and replacement of acres of impervious surfaces with porous materials that allow water to pass into the ground, rather than storm sewers. FEMA estimates that for every dollar invested in flood avoidance, $6 is saved in recovery from damage. Not sexy, perhaps, but necessary, and consistent with a more traditional version of “infrastructure” that is supported by both Republicans and Democrats.
I wrote two letters, one to each of my senators, urging their support for new water infrastructure (you can read them in the “Blog Pups” 8/1/21 blog post accompanying this). This is admittedly a small first jab at activism, but I have learned that letters can be quite influential if some basic precepts are followed. You can get a lesson in that from the Union of Concerned Scientists here (I don’t want to lecture), but one key is to address specific legislation, and another is that an honest-to-goodness, bona fide snail-mail letter gets the most notice. One should write to the politician personally as well, thanking them for something you liked that they did, showing awareness of their role in what you’re writing about, and asking them out for a beer (just kidding). I have a senator with an almost-perfect environmental voting record (Bob Casey), and one with the worst possible record (Pat Toomey), so I adjusted accordingly.
A simple start for me, but maybe one you’d like to try too for this or another topic you’re passionate about. I am working on something more exciting, so stay tuned. I’m signed up to learn how to lobby. A step or two beyond letter-writing, and a little scary. Might require a beer and a beach.
