WBEZ | flooding

Botanic Garden gets over-watered by storms and is saved by plants, Army

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 23:34:00 -0500

Chicago's "garden on the water" got over-watered last week.

With more than six miles of shoreline, the Chicago Botanic Garden offers an idyllic green scenery along a waterfront. But when last week's inundation sent the garden’s lake levels soaring by more than five feet, the scene looked more like a swamp. And it was the actions of native plants – and the U.S. Army – that saved it.

The rising water swallowed stone lanterns on the shores of the Japanese Garden. In the past, such flooding would have sucked soil away from the garden’s shorelines. Thanks to an aggressive perennial plant initiative that has tied up lakefront soil with native plant roots, however, many areas of the garden weathered the storm with ease.

“Within a few weeks you won’t even know anything ever happened,” said Bob Kirschner, director of restoration ecology at the Botanic Garden. Water levels should return to normal by Sunday night, he said, more than 10 days after the lakes began to rise.

In 2012 the Army Corps of Engineers helped the Garden flatten out its sloping shores, which had been made steeper by years of erosion. Like many landscaped lakefronts and urban waterways, the Garden once had turf grass right down to the water’s edge. When turf grass goes underwater for days on end, it dies. Then the waves washing against that edge start to erode the soil. That process feeds upon itself, chipping away at the earth until you are left with vertical banks.

Over the past 13 years they have planted more than 450,000 native plants representing hundreds of species. Plants like riverbank sedge and blue flag iris were selected for their ability to survive extended flooding. While conventional flood control infrastructure like sheet piling and stone riprap can help forestall erosion, it can also create “biological deserts,” Kirschner said, by isolating what might otherwise be a thriving ecosystem where land slopes gently into shallow waters.

“Native plants don’t change the volume of the water we store here,” Kirschner explained, “but they change the resiliency of the ecosystem so it can recover.”

Native plants aren’t just for botanic gardens and ecologists. The Skokie River frequently spills over into the Garden, but not before running through 20 miles of north suburban development. If small landowners took an ecological approach to their backyard landscaping, they could have a significant impact on the river’s flashiness.

“Your friends and neighbors upriver largely control your destiny,” Kirschner said, “but you’re controlling the destinies of people downriver from you.”

Of course native plants have their limits, too. Climate change will likely intensify precipitation extremes, leading to more severe floods and droughts. But the Botanic Garden’s native plants survived even worse floods in 2008, and didn’t need any water during last summer’s drought.

Chris Bentley writes about environmental issues. Follow him on Twitter at @Cementley.

As Emanuel announces new flood control project, some say plans need to adapt for climate change

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 08:45:00 -0500

As neighborhoods from Albany Park to South Shore work to wring out water-damaged possessions and clear up flood debris, Chicago area water managers say they’re doing what they can to control flooding. But some also say climate change could make the task more difficult in the future.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced plans Sunday to construct a huge new tunnel at a cost of $45 to $55 million to help reduce flooding in the Albany Park area, which also experienced a serious flood in 2008. Speaking on the issue Monday, the mayor also noted that Albany Park has “been affected by once-in-a-century flooding that happened twice in five years.”

Donald Wuebbles, professor of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Illinois, has also noticed unusually frequent extremes in Chicago’s weather.

“The projections are that we will see even more precipitation coming as larger events in the future,” Wuebbles said. He’s been writing and speaking for years about the effects of climate change on weather, and for years has been warning Chicagoans about more frequent catastrophic storms to come due to warming atmospheric temperatures.

David St. Pierre, Executive Director of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District says as far as he’s concerned, that reality is already here.

“We’re seeing a lot more severe events than we saw ten years ago, five years ago,” St. Pierre said.

He said tunnels like the one proposed by the city and the MWRD’s Deep Tunnel project can address stormwater issues to a limited extent, but even the biggest tunnel will not be able to handle the new normal. St. Pierre thinks the region also needs to look at solutions that keep water completely out of an overwhelmed sewer system.

Take, for instance, green infrastructure proposals that have been around for a while. In 2003, then-Mayor Richard Daley’s office released a document on best stormwater management practices including green roofs and permeable pavement. But the issue is a regional one, and ideas that would make green infrastructure a requirement have been slower to take shape.

The City of Chicago’s stormwater ordinance passed in 2007 regulates runoff from new developments and redevelopment projects above a certain size, suggesting on-site retention systems and permeable pavement among the management options. But its scope has been limited so far. And the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District drafted a Watershed Management Ordinance in 2009 that includes requirements for wetland protection and maintenance of permeable surfaces in new developments; it could come up for a vote this year. Meantime, the Chicago Department of Transportation is working on a draft of its own “Sustainable Urban Infrastructure Guidelines” that would mandate careful control of runoff in all new city infrastructure. Eventually, these ideas would form a patchwork of regulations to prevent flooding.

But none of these options retroactively require homes or businesses to control runoff into the city’s sewers, a limitation that could become increasingly significant with each new season of huge storms. In the meantime, city officials are asking residents who want to join neighborhood-wide mitigation programs to look into its Basement Flooding Partnership.

Correction: The audio version of this story incorrectly referred to Donald Wuebbles as John Wuebbles.

Last week's storm still causing flooding problems

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 12:40:00 -0500

DES PLAINES, Ill. — The rain is gone for now but the trouble it caused last week is still here.

While many roads are reopening all over suburban Chicago, there are still plenty that remain closed. Flooding along the along the Fox River and the Des Plaines River has left many roads impassable in communities such as Lisle, Gurnee and Des Plaines. In many cases residents are getting around in canoes.

In Des Plaines, City Manager Mike Bartholomew tells The (Arlington Heights) Daily Herald that even when the water recedes enough to open the roads it will take at least a half a day to get them cleaned up enough to reopen.

It is expected to be sunny Monday but the area may get as much as an inch of rain Tuesday.

Heavy rain overwhelms combined sewer system

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 16:17:00 -0500

Inundated by nearly 5 inches of rain in less than 36 hours, Chicago water officials have had to "re-reverse" the flow of the Chicago River, opening the large gates that separate Lake Michigan from the river to relieve pressure on a sewer system swollen with runoff and waste.

As Chicago Magazine’s Whet Moser reported, the deluge has easily outpaced recent upgrades to the city's water and sewage infrastructure. Michael Hawthorne of the Chicago Tribune reported in 2011 that Lake Michigan had been hit with more sewage in recent years than the previous two decades combined.

The Metropolitan Wastewater Reclamation District said Thursday that its 109-mile network of tunnels and reservoirs was 100 percent full. The Mainstream Tunnel was full by 12:31 a.m., while the Des Plaines Tunnel filled up at 3:30 a.m. Built to contain 2.3 billion gallons, the system hit capacity and poured enough stormwater and sewage into Chicago-area waterways to help raise their levels higher than Lake Michigan. Following protocol, MWRD tried to relieve some of that pressure by dumping the tainted water into the lake.

Contaminants can spread kilometers away from shore. MWRD has asked residents to minimize their water use to help ease the strain on the heavily burdened system. Not that it's a great day for a swim, anyway, but you might not want to hit the beach, either.

Chicago’s sewer problems may be stark, but they are not unique. A 2004 EPA report to Congress found Chicago’s overflows plagued mainly by bacteria, while the city of Toledo, Ohio suffered pollution from copper, lead, silver and zinc. Water samples taken near Toledo's sewer outfalls showed effects of chronic toxicity. A 2010 study by the National Wildlife Federation found cities around the Great Lakes discharged 41 billion gallons of untreated sewage and stormwater into the lakes in 2009, with Chicago and Detroit leading the way.

There has been some progress. Detroit has decreased sewer overflows by 80 percent below 1995 levels by adding capacity, but had to back off its own deep tunnel project in 2009 due to lack of funding.

Chicago’s waterways have cleared up, too, but face a murky future. The total number of fish species found in the Chicago and Calumet river system increased six-fold between 1974, around the time that MWRD upgraded their facilities, and 2001. But the Deep Tunnel project originally meant to help the system avoid overflows won’t be complete until 2029, and may still be inadequate in the face of floods pumped up by climate change.

Soil moisture back to normal, now rain hampering Illinois farmers

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 15:19:00 -0500

It’s sprouting time across the state and farmers are breathing a sigh of relief as soil moisture in Illinois returns to normal after a year of uncertainty. Spring of 2012 was marked by arid, warm weather that led into one of the hottest summers on record and a drought that continued through the winter. Illinois farmers’ concerns about planting conditions for the spring planting season have scarcely subsided, but the forecast is better than it has been for a long time.

“Right now, we are pretty much seeing normal levels across the state, which is a lot better than what we were seeing at this time last year,” said Jennie Atkins of the Illinois State Water Survey, which monitors soil moisture daily. Above-average precipitation in January and February made up for a middling fall, and stormy weather this week can’t hurt moisture, either.

“After last year, soil moisture is a very precious commodity in the state,” said John Hawkins of the Illinois Farm Bureau.

But there’s also a downside to the influx of rain. There were flood warnings and severe storms in parts of Illinois Tuesday, and now many farmers have to wait for warmer, drier weather to plant.

“When you have a lot of rain and flood it definitely affects the larger crop productions,” said Toni Anderson, the organizer of Sacred Keepers Sustainability Garden in Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood. “I don’t necessarily have to worry about that in the city because we need every drop we can get.”

She says the sandy soil on Martin Luther King Avenue on Chicago’s south side drains easily, and the garden’s focus on native species means they can tolerate weather extremes. But given concerns about climate change, she’s not necessarily jumping for joy about yet another swing of the weather pendulum.

“It’s refreshing and scary all at the same time,” Anderson said.

Logan Square parklet would soak up rain along Milwaukee Avenue

Fri, 29 Mar 2013 05:00:00 -0500

Torrential rain drenched the city in 2010. Lula Cafe in Logan Square, like many homes and businesses, was inundated and had to shut down for a few days due to flooding. Barely a year later the same thing happened, and is expected to continue recurring as climate change contributes to heavier storms in the Chicago area.

“There’s a very high concentration of 311 calls for flooding in this neighborhood,” said Kara Riggio, a senior research associate with the Metropolitan Planning Council.

MPC manages a $200,000 grant from the state Environmental Protection Agency to seed green infrastructure projects on 79 acres of North Milwaukee Avenue between Kimball and California avenues.

Right now about 95 percent of that area is made up of impervious surfaces that prevent rain from soaking into the ground, further aggravating an overburdened stormwater system. Their goal is expand the pervious surface area, sprinkling natural filtration systems throughout several urban neighborhoods.

“The idea is making these small investments at the parcel level,” Riggio said. “Hopefully we’ll be able to concentrate them and make an impact on how much water is entering the sewer system.”

So far they have approved six projects in what they’re calling The Milwaukee Avenue Green Development Corridor. Recently they approved plans to turn a drab concrete island bounded by Milwaukee, Kimball and Woodard avenues into a parklet that will prevent 4,434 gallons of stormwater from entering the sewer system during each one-inch storm event. The design expands pervious surfaces by a factor of eight, from 185 square feet to 1,500.

Dubbed Woodard Plaza, its features include a concrete runnel that directs water collected throughout the plaza toward five infiltration planters, which include native plants. The plaza will receive some additional runoff from adjacent streets by lowering the curb in some places.

It could be a boon for the pedestrian experience around that intersection, which is home to the Logan Square Community Arts Center and Hairpin artist lofts, but remains a spit of concrete amid busy streets.

The design team includes Terry Guen Design Associates, with civil engineering from McDonough Associates and soil testing from Wang Engineering. Grant funding only accounts for 8 percent of the total cost, but the rest has been secured through the Chicago Department of Transportation’s Make Way for People initiative and tax increment financing (TIF) funding.

On Saturday MPC will hold a workshop in Logan Square’s Comfort Station (2579 N. Milwaukee Ave.) with information about the grant program, which still has $80,000 to award.

Climate change could worsen Chicago floods

Wed, 20 Mar 2013 05:00:00 -0500

Climatologists predict rainstorms will become heavier and more frequent in Northeastern Illinois, but many Chicagoans don’t need mathematical models to know flooding is a problem.

Azarina Cerkic, 37, was living in the 5100 block of North Bernard Street in 2008, when a record-setting storm dropped more than 6.5 inches of rain in one day. (That record has since been broken.) The North Branch of the Chicago River rushed over its banks in Albany Park, dumping more than seven feet of water into Cerkic’s basement.

“There was so much water it flipped my washer and dryer right over, effortlessly,” she said. “And those are some seriously heavy things.”

Cerkic and her husband had moved to the neighborhood from nearby Portage Park only three months earlier. Worried about the rising water, she said she called 311 on Friday and was told it would be fine. On Saturday the Red Cross evacuated her street.

Neighbors who had lived next to the river since the 1970s told her not to worry about flooding, Cerkic said. Like her, many of them did not have flood insurance. Cerkic, who now lives in El Paso, Texas, lost everything in her basement except for some childhood photographs that happened to tangle themselves up in plastic, surviving the water damage and mold.

“I’ve had a lot less attachment to physical things since the flood,” she said.

Even the most rigorous models cannot predict the future with certainty, but the third national climate assessment released in draft form in January said the Midwest is likely to see a substantial increase in extreme rainfall events as a result of climate change.

The frequency of heavy rainfall in the region has doubled since the 1970s, according to the Chicago Climate Action Plan, and the 10 most extreme floods in northeast Illinois all occurred after 1950.

State Climatologist Jim Angel cautioned that climate models can be difficult to plan around. He and his colleagues reviewed several models available in 2007 and found widely varying predictions for future rainfall in Illinois.

“Even if we had the perfect climate model,” Angel said, “we still don’t know what society is going to do with greenhouse gas emissions.”

Still, Angel said, the trend is toward wetter conditions. Not only are the annual precipitation totals greater, but heavier events have become more common. Last year’s drought was severe, but 2012 was the exception in a decades-long trend. In terms of overall precipitation, it tied several other years for the 10^th driest in Illinois history.

Apart from rising greenhouse gases, changes in land-use may also be accelerating the effects of climate change. As more natural landscapes are ceded to development and urban sprawl, hydrologists register an explosion in “impervious surfaces” such as concrete, brick and pavement. Water that once seeped slowly through the soil is instead shunted off into rivers and streams directly as stormwater.

Agricultural development also contributes to the rising frequency of extreme storm events.

“You couldn’t design a more efficient way of pulling moisture out of the soil and putting into the atmosphere in July than what we’ve got with the corn and soybean crops,” Angel said.

While the Metropolitan Wastewater Reclamation District prepares to release a watershed management ordinance later this year — similar measures have been in place for more than a decade in the collar counties — it is not expected to factor in climate change.

Chris Bentley writes about the environment. Follow him on Twitter at @Cementley.

Flooding in a drought year

Tue, 19 Mar 2013 17:15:00 -0500

After a frighteningly dry summer, record-low lake levels over the winter and a near shut-down of the Mississippi river due to low waters, it’s flood season. This week there were flood warnings in Lake County to the north of Chicago and in parts of the Illinois River to the west, and numerous rivers and streams hit flood or near-flood levels near the Quad Cities, Cairo and St. Louis.

The sudden flooding may be hard to absorb, but it’s a fact of living in a floodplain state. Illinois’ low lands and abundant rivers mean many parts of the state are liable to flood on a yearly basis, and the Chicago area’s history is marked by almost countless catastrophic floods.

So, is anything special about this year’s flood warnings? Well, yes and no.

“Typically, our flood season for the larger rivers is in the early spring,” said Bill Morris, a hydrologist at the National Weather Service. But this year, he said, areas north of Chicago had a frost depth down to ten inches during the melt and precipitation. “So when we had additional rainfall...that water basically hit a solid surface and just started running off into the streams.”

Morris said the runoff has the added consequence of preventing much-needed water from absorbing into parched, drought-stricken soil. To make a deeper dent in the drought we’ll need rain throughout the spring.

Flood or near-flood conditions have been even more widespread closer to St. Louis, but Mike Petersen of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers St. Louis District agrees that it’s not unusual.

“I think what’s really alarming for folks is to see how quickly the river came up this year,” Petersen said.

In one day in the St. Louis area he saw the Mississippi rise ten feet due to a combination of increased water from snow melt in the north, and precipitation in the watershed. But rain doesn’t necessarily mean an end to drought.

“I think we are relieved to have some water in the river, but...we may end up facing low water conditions seeing as we’ve gone into this year with less water in the system than we started last year,” Petersen said.

Flood trouble

Flooding in the greater Chicago area is a lot more complicated than what you might imagine when you hear about a flooded river; in that TV-ready scenario, the river overflows, and water creeps into streets and front yards.

But a lot of the flooding that strikes Chicago is flash flooding or sewer backups – the result of water filling up Chicago’s notorious combined sewer system. Dramatic summertime floods afflicted multiple Chicago neighborhoods in recent summers when sudden rains overflowed the city’s drainage system.

Beverly native Kathy Parker has lived in West Morgan Park on the far South Side for six years. In spring of 2011 her house flooded during a downpour, and her finished basement filled with several feet of sewer water. She cleaned for nearly two days straight, threw out a bunch of personal possessions, and thought she’d seen the worst of it. A month later, her basement filled up again.

She described a situation that may be grossly familiar to many Chicagoans.

“This time it was even worse, water just shooting like a fountain out of the drain, and everything imaginable and nasty in there,” Parker said.

She lost her my parents’ wedding albums in the flood. Her block was lined with dumpsters where neighbors tossed carpets, flooring and personal items.

Darlene Crawford of Calumet Heights tells a similar story. She’s lived on the Southeast Side for over 40 years with her family and has no desire to leave behind the house she bought shortly after marrying her husband.

“It’s a close-knit community and most of us have lived here, raised our children and now our grandchildren,” she said, “and a lot of our kids have moved back into this area.”

But not long after they moved into the house, their basement flooded for the first time. She says it has since flooded at least twenty times, not including instances of minor leaks.

“We didn’t know to ask, or to have a home inspection [before moving in],” she said.

But it wasn’t long before they realized, as Kathy Parker had, that the problem was community-wide.

“We found out that our house wasn’t the only house experiencing this type of problem. After a rain we would see the alleys just littered with household items,” Crawford said.

Crawford eventually came together with her neighbors to demand help from the city and the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District (MWRD), but she says most of the solutions she and her neighbors have adopted are individual: flood insurance, remodeling, changing how they use their basements for storage and installing individual drainage systems for homes.

“Nobody does anything about it”

Someone once said everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.

Not so in the metro Chicago area. Cities and counties have no choice but to act on flooding; the amount of water that melts or precipitates in sudden bursts in an average Chicago spring or summer is too much to ignore.

Chicago’s faced with a problem related to the nature of its expansive and world-famous sewer system. The system, originally constructed in the 1800s, is what’s known as a combined sewer system: raw sewage and rainwater drain into the same pipes. Once upon a time, that drainage headed to the lake; now most of it goes through some treatment and separation, and gets deposited into waterways connected to the Illinois and Chicago Rivers. But during a storm, the whole system can become quickly overwhelmed, and when it overflows, the overflow (politely called a Combined Sewer Overflow or CSO by the MWRD) is a mix of rain water and raw sewage.

The MWRD has been working since the 1970s on what’s called the “Deep Tunnel” project or TARP (Tunnel and Reservoir Plan) that involves constructing a humongous system of tunnels, some as wide as 33 feet, connected to reservoirs designed to store overflow water. The 109 miles of underground tunnels are complete, but the last of the reservoirs won’t be complete until 2029. MWRD says the construction of the TARP has reduced the numbers of days with combined sewer overflows from 100 per year to 50 per year on average.

But Chicago floods may also be addressed by community-based and development solutions.

“It’s a collective problem, rather than just an individual property problem,” said Harriet Festing, director of the water program at the Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT).

CNT is researching the prevalence and cost of flooding in the Chicago area by gathering insurance claim data and personal stories about flooding experiences.

“Forty-two percent of Cook County is impervious...that’s our parking lots, our streets, our sidewalks. And that’s just volumes of rain running off those areas and into our backyards and our basements,” Festing said.

As long as that volume of runoff has nowhere to go, using personal funds to build a more waterproof basement or better drainage in your own backyard is tantamount to swimming upstream in the Calumet River (and you don’t want to do that).

According to Festing, development that takes water runoff into account can go a long way in preventing increased flood risk in urban areas; rain barrels, rain gardens and small-scale projects in individual homes can also make a difference if they’re installed across an entire neighborhood.

MWRD has been taking public comments on a proposed watershed management ordinance since 2009, and plans to release a complete draft this spring. If passed, the ordinance would authorize a more proactive district-wide approach to new development that would better absorb storm water and protect people from flooding.

Not flooded out yet? WBEZ’s Chris Bentley has more on the links between flooding and climate change.

And you can get tips from the federal government and from the City of Chicago on how to deal with flooding in your area.

Follow Lewis Wallace on Twitter.

Climate Change warnings in sharp relief

Wed, 16 Jan 2013 06:15:00 -0600

The draft of a new report on climate change minces no words. Released Monday for public comment, the draft is the latest in a series of National Climate Assessments requested by Congress.

“Climate change is already affecting the American people,” states the opening sentence of the report, written by The National Climate Assessment and Development Advisory Committee. “Certain types of weather events have become more frequent and/or intense, including heat waves, heavy downpours, and, in some regions, floods and droughts. Sea level is rising, oceans are becoming more acidic, and glaciers and Arctic sea ice are melting. These changes are part of the pattern of global climate change, which is primarily driven by human activity.”

I have not thoroughly reviewed all 1,193 pages [full .pdf] of the draft, but here is a summary of its six “Key Messages” for the Midwest region:

Lower agricultural productivity. Longer growing seasons and higher concentrations of carbon dioxide will increase some crop yields. Those benefits, however, “will be increasingly offset by the occurrence of extreme events” like heat waves, droughts and floods. But, we don’t know the rate of grain yield improvements, or the degree to which future genetically modified organisms could cope with new conditions.
Fleeing forests. Tree species that can will shift northward in pursuit of familiar climatic conditions. That could change local ecosystems and even compromise the Midwest’s role as a net carbon absorber.
Public health risks. More heat waves, worse air quality and worse water quality (via combined sewer overflows) will result from higher temperatures and the increased occurrence of extreme weather events. But, there are steps we can take. Improving building stock and access to air-conditioning or cooling stations could reduce deaths during heat waves; reducing pollution could blunt the exacerbating effect that higher air temperatures will have on the chemical reactions reducing air quality; and building green infrastructure could reduce the occurrence of combined sewer overflows.
Eyes on us. The Midwest relies heavily on coal for electricity generation and our economy is dominated by carbon-intensive agricultural and manufacturing industries, which means the region’s per capita emissions are 20 percent higher than the national average. But, those same industries have the most room for carbon emissions reductions.
Flooding. Total precipitation is likely to increase, and more of it will fall at once. Expect more extreme weather events, from wetter springs to drier summers. Sea-level rise may not hit Chicago, but “Inland cities near large rivers,” the report states, “also experience more flooding, especially in the Midwest and Northeast.”
Great Lakes threatened. Less ice cover in winter and longer droughts in the summer could further lower average lake levels. Warming waters could change which fish species call the Great Lakes home. Extreme conditions could set the table for invasive species. All that extra rain is likely to diminish beach health and water quality by contributing to pollution from runoff, potentially increasing the frequency of waterborne illnesses and harmful algal blooms. Reduced ice cover could also lengthen the shipping season, but low lake levels might increase the cost of shipping freight nonetheless.

“In general,” the document reads, “climate change will tend to amplify existing risks from climate to people, ecosystems and infrastructure in the Midwest.”

On the heels of reports that 2012 was the world's 10th warmest on record, the draft report warns that severe heat waves like the one that claimed 800 lives in Chicago in 1995 could become a common occurrence by 2100.

Hurricane Sandy rightly received special mention in the document. That unprecedented storm came at the end of the first presidential campaign since 1988 to not mention climate change. While CNN refrained from using the term “frankenstorm” in its coverage, climatologist Joe Romm said the metaphor is fitting for this “global warming-driven monster.”

Extreme weather events were unusually common in 2012, leading to some hand-wringing in the media over whether or not climate change could be blamed for any particular storm. A helpful analogy is that of loaded dice. Most of the scientifically predicted effects of climate change are explained with varying factors of risk, not “if A then always B” causation.

“The evidence for a changing climate has strengthened considerably since the last National Climate Assessment report, written in 2009,” reads a “Letter to the American People” that accompanies the report. The authors, led by Jerry Melillo of the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass., draw on the strongest evidence yet linking climate change to anthropogenic activities such as burning fossil fuels.

Chicago’s Climate Action Plan and its Green Homes Program get shoutouts in the report’s section on climate adaptation. The authors count Chicago among the “vanguards in the creation of climate adaptation strategies.” Cities may be most at risk, the report suggests, but they may also be the most likely source of a solution.

This report is only a draft, and the authors welcome public comment on the document until April 12. It is also subject to “extensive review” by the National Academy of Sciences. After it undergoes any subsequent revisions, the report will become an advisory document of the federal government.

Cleanup begins in wake of Irene

Mon, 29 Aug 2011 11:55:00 -0500

Irene is gone but the trouble it started isn't finished by a long-shot. It could be days or even weeks before some of the millions
without electricity get it back. Airlines will be busy untangling masses of stranded passengers delayed by canceled flights. And some rivers in New York and New England pose potentially major flood threats today.

And then there's the damage. It hasn't been tallied up yet but one private estimate is up to $7 billion.

Flooding is widespread in Vermont and the Mohawk River is over its banks in parts of New York. Officials say they may be seeing
500-year flood conditions on the Mohawk. New York City's three main airports will be reopening today as will part of the subway system. Commuters have been warned of long lines and waits.

Airports in Philadelphia and Washington are open and Boston's transit system is reopening. So are Atlantic City casinos.

Aviation officials in Chicago say almost 400 flights have been canceled at both of Chicago's airports because of Tropical
Storm Irene. Airlines canceled more than 300 flights at O'Hare International Airport and around 70 at Midway International Airport on Sunday.

Chicago's Department of Aviation says most of the cancellations are due to East Coast weather conditions. There aren't any delays. More than 11,500 flights have been canceled nationwide.

Weather officials downgraded Irene from a hurricane to a tropical storm Sunday as the storm's winds lost speed. As a hurricane, Irene had already unloaded more than a foot of water on North Carolina, spun off tornadoes in Virginia, Maryland and Delaware, and left 4 million homes and businesses without power. At least 18 people died in the storm.

Meantime, New York City subway service is back on track for the morning rush. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority said limited service resumed at 5:40 a.m. Monday. It said service remains suspended on Metro-North Railroad because of heavy damage from Tropical Storm Irene. Metro-North serves regions north of New York City, from Westchester County to southern Connecticut.

The MTA's decision Saturday to halt all subways, buses and commuter trains in preparation for the storm had threatened to disrupt the start of the work week for millions of New Yorkers. It was the first time a natural disaster ever shut the system down.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is making no apologies for ordering hundreds of thousands of people to evacuate for a hurricane that ended up doing relatively little damage in New York. Bloomberg said he was unwilling to risk the life of a single New Yorker in the face of Hurricane Irene. He spent days urging people to get out of harm's way and to prepare for storm. Irene caused some flooding and other problems in New York but no deaths or injuries.

The mayor said he's not sure whether it's the city's preparations or luck that prevented the toll from being worse. But he said he would make the same decisions again.