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How green is the dyed-green Chicago River?
Every year a bunch of journeymen plumbers in Chicago use a secret recipe to dye the river green, on the day much of the city goes bonkers over the St. Patrick's Day Parade. It's nice to see people having a good time, but it's also registered as one of those, "ooh, I don't want to know what they're really putting in that water" kind of things. It turns out that no one actually does know the secret compound slipped into the river, but since 1966 it is a "vegetable dye."
The Christian Science Monitor has the story:
Even though they won’t say what’s in the dye, the parade committee insists that it’s nontoxic, and claim that “the formula has been thoroughly tested by independent chemists and has been proven safe for the environment.” But environmental regulators in other cities have rejected plans to dye their rivers for the Irish holiday. In 2005, environmental regulators in Broward County, Fla. rejected plans to dye Fort Lauderdale’s New River. And this year officials with Michigan’s Department of Environmental Quality nixed plans for a dye job for the Saginaw River.
Read the full article here.
Tags: Holiday, St patrick's day, Water purity, Water quality
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