Quench: The Cleaner, Greener, More Affordable Water Cooler for Chicago

Chicago Water Quality: Yesterday

During the Industrial Revolution, the city of Chicago rapidly became a bustling metropolis with varied industries and a growing population. However, its growth was jeopardized by the practice of disposing industrial, animal, and human waste into the Chicago River and Lake Michigan. By the 1850s, after several cholera epidemics, city planners recognized the critical public health need to create a reliable source of clean drinking water.

In 1861, the Chicago Board of Public Works began construction of an extensive water system that is still in use today. A 2-mile tunnel was excavated under Lake Michigan, creating a clean water intake protected by a “crib” – a structure that surrounds and protects the intake shaft from possible pollutants. Engineers and miners toiled 24 hours a day, 6 days a week to finish the construction of Two-Mile Crib within a year. As the city grew, six additional cribs were added over the next 50 years, including the Carter H. Harrison, Edward F. Dunne, Wilson Avenue, and William E. Dever Cribs.

At the same time, a complex sewer system was developed to carry wastewater away from the drinking water intakes in Lake Michigan. Originally, waste discharged into the Chicago River often found its way into Lake Michigan, carried by heavy rain or melting snow. By constructing a series of four channels, including the 28-mile Sanitary and Ship Canal, the flow of the Chicago River was reversed to carry sewage well away from drinking water supplies of Lake Michigan.

Chicago Water Quality: Today

Today, Lake Michigan provides almost 1 billion gallons of water to residents of Chicago and 125 surrounding communities. Many of the original cribs and pipes are still in use. However, as is common in many city with old, cast iron water infrastructure, it is common for the pipes to crack, rust, and corrode, exposing drinking water to a number of potential impurities, like cloudiness, brown water, off-tastes and odors.

Quench Water Coolers – A Better Drinking Water System For Chicago

No need to worry about what your office’s drinking water might have picked up on its journey to your glass. Quench offers a full complement of filtration and purification technologies to remove sediment, reduce chemical contaminants, including lead, and get rid of off-tastes and odors. That’s how we can guarantee that Quench office water coolers produce crisp, clean, great-tasting water – and at a fraction of the price of bottled water delivery services.