|
NW Washington | The Chicago river used to flow into Lake Michigan, but the City of Chicago gets their drinking water from Lake Michigan. So, they decided rather than dump their sewer into their drinking water they better change the way the Chicago River flows. It now flows into the Illinois River which is navigitable by towboats and barges all the way to New Orleans via the Mississippi River. There are lock gates between the Lake Michagan and the Chicago River, but it is only used by small tour boats and other similar vessels. Barge traffic is farther south of the center of the city.
That said, ocean going ships do come to Chicago and cities nearby that are also on Lake Michigan. These ships get to Chicago from the Atlantic ocean via the St Lawence Seaway, the other Great Lakes and the Welland Canal. Then the ship will have to transit the Panama Canal to get to the Pacific ocean.
Most freight from China, Japan and other places in your neck of the world goes into to port in Long Beach California, a suburb of Los Angles. Ships also go to San Franciso, Portland Oregon and Seattle Washington from Asia. From there many, many, containers are shipped across the the US via railroads which are running at maximum capacity.
There you have it, your US geography lesson for the evening. "No worries". the shipping company will figure out the cheapest route. | |
|
off subject question and maybe silly
