Chicago - A message from the station manager

The [Thursday] Papers

By Steve Rhodes

“You may or may not have noticed Chicago’s shoreline is shrinking,” ABC7 Chicago reports. “According to the city’s Park District the land along the lakefront is slowly disappearing.”



“That’s why Tuesday Park District officials launched a fact finding mission to assess the state of the city’s 18 miles of shoreline.”
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“Lake Michigan Has Swallowed Up 2 Chicago Beaches This Summer. Experts Say The Worst Could Still Be On The Way,” the Tribune reported earlier this month.
“[The lake] has swiped fishermen from piers, swimmers from beaches and submerged jetties, creating hazards for boaters. It has flooded heavily trafficked parts of lakefront bicycle and pedestrian pathways, leaving some stretches underwater and others crumbling.
“But perhaps the most worrisome aspect of this summer is that these perils have occurred while the lake has remained mostly calm.

“Fall is the time of the year when wave conditions are historically the most severe on the Great Lakes,” said David Bucaro, outreach manager at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Chicago District. “We’re at a calmer period right now. There’s been some summer storms. But that October, November time period is when we really experience historically the most powerful coastal storms. That’s the conditions that we’re monitoring and are most concerned with.”

Yikes.
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“The Park District hasn’t purchased sand to replenish its beaches in at least a decade, according to spokeswoman Michele Lemons, and adding new sand during this period of resurgent lake levels ‘is not an effective solution’ as officials believe the investment could be erased by powerful waves. But experts say inaction has consequences too.

The more beach sand that drifts into deep waters, the deeper the lake bed becomes, which, in turn, allows taller waves to crash ashore and increases erosion.
Sandy beaches typically slope down to the water’s edge, allowing water to naturally drain to the lake. But sand-starved beaches can become flat and allow pools of standing water to form, according to Ethan Theuerkauf, a coastal geologist with the Illinois State Geological Survey. This stagnant water has been known to attract shorebirds that pollute it with their feces, presenting sanitary issues.

Yikes.
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Neither ABC7 nor the Tribune cited climate change as the cause of erosion, and at least one park official says they’ve been fighting the phenomenon for years (not as if climate change hasn’t been occurring for years).
The Tribune did quote a beachgoer saying, “It’s sad, but it’s Mother Nature.”
Is it? Is it just Mother Nature?
Because the Tribune newsroom has now essentially just endorsed that view. And maybe climate change has nothing to do with it – but then you have to say that, because readers are going to wonder. I certainly did. So I kept going.
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“Why are beaches disappearing?” the Tribune editorial board wondered, after reading its own paper’s story.
“Blame in part a soggy spring that pelted Chicago with enough precipitation to push up each of the Great Lakes more than a foot above their monthly average. For two consecutive months, Lake Michigan has crested to its highest mark in more than 30 years, just an inch short of record levels set in 1986, the Tribune’s Tony Briscoe reported.”
Okay.
“Chicagoans have come to accept the fickle side of Lake Michigan. Lake levels rise and fall; that’s just the cyclical nature of Mother Nature. Our lake has its impish side, we’ve noted previously. It keeps us guessing, and marveling. Six years ago, the lake sank to a record low of 576 feet above sea level. Today, levels are nearly 6 feet above that mark.”
Oh, our impish lake!
“Scientists expect climate change to bring more frequent and intense severe storms, and in turn, more erosion.”
And there it is. Believe me, folks, I had to hunt for it.
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“We’d like to lather up a ‘Save Our Beaches’ campaign, but solutions are hard to come by. On the Far North Side, condominium associations have applied for permits to construct or reinforce shoreline protections. The Chicago Park District could dump tons of sand to build up beaches that have washed away, but you know where most of that sand’s likely to go – into the maw of the lake.”
Or, and I’m just blue-skying it here, we could take the drastic action on climate change that we need. Or a “Save Our Beaches” campaign, whatever you think works best.
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“Local communities, residents and others should do what they can to protect our valuable shoreline, invest wisely in the lakefront and plan for an unpredictable future. Chicagoans should also recognize they are at the whim of a 1.3 quadrillion-gallon sheet of blue that at once enchants on a breezy summer afternoon – and maddens as shorelines crumble.”
Oh, that impish lake and its whims!
“What to do about Lake Michigan? Fortify the shoreline, to the extent possible, mindful that scientists believe the future will bring increasing variability in lake levels.”
But why? Like the Tribune editorial board, I’ve already forgotten!
“But also remember that Chicago perches on the shore of one of the Great Lakes, a powerful iteration of nature that isn’t easily tamed.”
It’s just Mother Nature.
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Hey, maybe call this guy over at UIC – the Half Moon Bay Review did!

“Beaches are perhaps the most iconic feature of California, and the potential for losing this identity is real,” said Sean Vitousek, professor of civil and materials engineering at the University of Illinois, Chicago, and the [lead] author of one USGS study called, “Disappearing Beaches: Modeling Shoreline Change in Southern California.”

You mean it’s not just happening here, with our impish and whimsical lake? Rad!
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Wired also called upon Vitousek, last October:

“From comparing the model to how it performed over the historical data, we can sort of get a sense of is this model performing in a realistic manner,” says Sean Vitousek, an engineer at the University of Illinois at Chicago. “And then we can use various projections in terms of sea level rise and wave heights going forward to sort of extrapolate where the shoreline might be over a long period of time.”

Yes. Do that here, so we’re not just subject to the many enchanting moods of our impish lake. We can actually plan for its whims!
“[B]y closely watching what cities like Los Angeles and nations like the Netherlands do to save themselves, the rest of the world might learn a thing or two about keeping our heads (and ports) above water,” Wired notes.
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By the way, that USGS report? It’s actually called “A Model Integrating Longshore And Cross-Shore Processes For Predicting Long-Term Shoreline Response To Climate Change.”
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“Can Adding Sand To Beaches Save Them?” How Stuff Works wondered in May 2018.
“[R]ising sea levels and stronger coastal storms associated with climate change pose a threat to the sands that make up our beaches.”
There’s that pesky climate change again.
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“If you just dump sand on a beach, that sand is not going to stay there forever,” our new friend Vitousek told How Stuff Works. “The current, methodical rate of beach nourishment is insufficient against the coming sea level rise.”
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Finally, from Vox in 2017, and updated in January 2018:

A group of scientists reported in May 2017 that the U.S. Department of the Interior objected to climate change references in a news release about a study they published on coastal flooding.
“While we were approving the news release, they had an issue with one or two of the lines,” Sean Vitousek, a research assistant professor at the University of Illinois Chicago, told the Washington Post. “It had to do with climate change and sea-level rise.”

The Vox piece is titled “‘Climate Change’ And ‘Global Warming’ Are Disappearing From Government Websites.”
And not appearing at all in the first place in some news reports.
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See also:
* The Conversation, via Scientific American, just last month: Climate Change Sends Great Lakes Water Levels Seesawing.
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And:
* Canadian Climate Change Study Forecasts More Erratic Conditions In Great Lakes.

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Plus:
* Washed Away: Northwest Wisconsin Copes With The Costs Of A Changing Climate.
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New on the Beachwood today . . .
Area Collector Finds Rare Babe Ruth Book Signed By Babe Ruth At Chicago Show
“Ruth-autographed copies of this book are especially rare since he was quite ill at the time and only singed a limited number of copies.”
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ChicagoReddit

Why is it that all the Popeye’s locations in/near the Chicago Loop are so bad? from r/chicago


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Popeye’s is out of sandwiches. from r/chicago


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ChicagoGram

View this post on Instagram

some lil friends to read alongside you

A post shared by Quimbys Bookstore (@quimbysbookstore) on


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ChicagoTube
Chinelo Mr Hulk brincando en la villita Chicago

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BeachBook
A Teen Art Group Covered A Milwaukee County Bus With Images Of Families Separated By ICE.

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Colorado Schools Issuing Buckets, Kitty Litter For Students To Go To The Bathroom During Lockdowns, School Shootings.

At least the NRA could pay for them.
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Their Mothers Chose Donor Sperm. The Doctors Chose Their Own.

Gross, disgusting and beyond infuriating.
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MLB To Horny Players: Please Use The Good Dick Pills, Not The Bad Ones.

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TweetWood
A sampling of the delight and disgust you will find @BeachwoodReport.
The New York Times headline is “Giuliani Renews Push For Ukraine To Investigate Trump’s Political Opponents.” Just let that sink in before considering the horrific ironies, including Paul Manafort and 2016.


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Who Has Trump Offended This Week? A twofer: Jews and Asians! Both for “disloyalty.” To him.


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Every day. DO YOUR JOB.


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Let’s face it: Trump’s lying, like his ignorance, bigotry and sexual assault, has been normalized.


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I’ve always liked Die Antwoord, but like many now-former fans I’ve removed them from my Facebook “likes” and canceled them. (Their recent problems go further than this link indicates; check it out for yourself if you want to know more. Also, good for Riot Fest.)


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This article is far more fascinating – in an awful way – than its ho-hum headline. Read it.


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Denmark is living the American Dream. We’re not.


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The Beachwood Tip Your Door Dasher In Cash Line.

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Posted on August 22, 2019