How Chicago Purifies One Million Gallons of Water Every Minute [Video]

How do you slake the thirst of 5.5 million Chicagoans spread throughout the country's third largest city and 118 surrounding suburbs? You treat one billion gallons of water a day at the world's largest water treatment plant.

Opened in 1968, the James W. Jardine Water Purification Plant provides virtually all of Chicago's potable water, though the smaller South Water Purification Plant also helps provide for the south end of the city. The process begins 2.5 miles off shore at massive in-flow points called cribs. Each crib pulls water from 20 feet below the surface down a 168-foot vertical shaft to tubes cut from the bedrock which flow back to the shore. Once it reaches the plant, fish and other large debris are filtered out using a rotating screen and the water is pumped 25 feet up to begin the gravity-powered treatment process.

The water is first chemically treated with chlorine to kill microbes and activated carbon to remove objectionable tastes and odors, then fluoride is added for healthier teeth, and finally aluminum sulfate about an hour into the process to increase the stickiness of microscopic solids which then adhere to each other, creating floc. Large paddles—floculators—assist with the mixing of alum and water. One of the very last chemicals added, polyphosphate, is used to coat the inside of Chicago's pipes, preventing the lead in old plumbing from leaching into the water supply. The water is then pumped into settling tanks where the floc sinks to the bottom. This sedimentation phase eliminates roughly 90 percent of the particulate matter from the water.

The water is then filtered in one of 96 swimming pool-sized tanks filled with a layer of coarse gravel under an upper layer of fine sand—together these layers effectively filter much of the remaining floc and debris from the water. The entire process from crib to filtration takes eight hours. From here, the water is pumped through 4,000 miles of pipe for consumption by the Chicago area's 5.5 million residents.

[Me Magazine - Algor - Water Purification Wiki - Jardine Water Purification Plant Wiki]

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Man to Feed Exclusively On 162 Gallons Of Wife's Breast Milk [Wtf]

After her third premature baby, Katie filled this 22-cubic-foot upright deep freezer with her excess breast milk. Now, her husband Curtis plans on feeding only on it for as long as his body can take it.

Their objective is to discover how much breast milk will it take to nourish a 6'4", 185-pound grown man and how many days can a grown man live off breast milk comfortably. Katie says that, after having her third premature kid, she originally stored the milk to donate it, like she did in the past. That didn't work out, so now they are conducting this experiment.

Katie, who is a lactation expert, says that Curtis needs 2,000 calories a day. After testing it, her breast milk contains approximately 27 to 32 calories per ounce, so that means Curtis needs to drink 66 ounces of breast milk daily. The experience is now on its third day, and it seems Curtis is getting too hungry already:

Much more hungry yesterday, 104 ounces consumed, roughly 3120 calories. Near the end of the day I started craving solid foods, so I drank more milk and it satisfied my hunger. I am really enjoying the milk now and am always surprised how each glass tastes different.

Katie and Curtis "will keep track of the number of ounces he drinks daily" and "monitor his weight to be sure he isn't losing weight." He will not eat any other food.

I'm all for breast milk. I love breasts. I have all the albums. But while I can imagine myself eating breast milk pancakes with a breast milk latte, I can't imagine myself drinking this stuff as my only form of nourishment. Unless you turn it into butter.

Hmmm, breast milk butter on French bread. [Don't Have a Cow, Man via Gothamist]

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