The Ecological Ghost Story
Can ghost stories hold the same power with “nonhuman” spirits? In the ecological ghost story, attention to the environmental aspects of storytelling and haunting emerge center stage. These nonhuman hauntings are tales of climate change, post-industrial pollution, and a legacy of the urban re-outfitted as ghost stories.
Surprisingly little changes when these events are framed as ghosts. The language of climate crisis and ghosts is movement, specifically that vanishing. It’s the shifting, phasing, vanishing and reappearing existence that befuddles scale and lands uncertainly within built environments. It’s the residue of ectoplasm and the disembodied sounds of or sightings of a haunting. Vanishing is a narrative tool as well, building in absence, in relief, and carving out the narrative absence of what has been made invisible or peripheral. Tracking the ethereal notions of climate crisis cracks the illusion of separation between inhabitants and emergency allowing a greater scope of understanding. Climate crisis phases into view as nonhuman hauntings.
The separation between pollution and the city is as much an illusion as the separation of city and nature. The residue of crisis is all across the cityscape. The flowers that don’t bloom, the trees that die, the invasive bugs are all indicators of the larger looming crisis. Constructed invisibility is the largest danger. To make these hidden things visible they must be built, utilizing the building material of narrative to conjure the gaps and tissues of crisis and adhere them to daily reality. These narratives destabilize the idea that a place is done or finalized, change can always occur. Ghost stories speak for what is not healed. They evoke a sense of tragedy and consequence, there is accountability in the spirits who wander and the same is true for ecological ghosts. These spirits and their stories are reminders.
The Chicago Flood
River Dredging
Flooding
Photos: Chicago Art Institute Archive
The Chicago flood occurred April 13th, 1992.
The Chicago coal chutes were implemented during the 20th century by the Chicago Tunnel Company. Tunnels underneath the city carried coal to buildings using river water. These tunnels, abandoned after other methods of energy and heating took over, were damaged during piling construction. Creaking and groaning pipes, broken, flooding with river water rising higher and higher in basements and buildings across the densely populated downtown Loop area. Many had to evacuate their workplaces and wade through calf-deep water to safety.
The resulting floods did an estimated $2 million of damage and resulted in multiple evacuations.
The coal chute floods have all the elements of a classic ghost story. A place once grand and revered in its splendor is now left abandoned and fallen into disrepair. When this place is uncovered, the restless spirits of a bygone age reappear and chase off those who dare disturb it. The structures which had been hidden away and abandoned made themselves visible in their deterioration demanding action to reconfigure the space.
The river underwent a previous transformation to an industrial site, becoming a waterway, seen as a place of industry instead of a space of nature. A body of water is one that exalts bodily autonomy, where defiance and emergency register as forces of nature; the coal chute floods are a moment of just that. The Chicago Flood was the result of those old tunnels haunting the city as they had previously made their ghost known through obstacles in building the subway and other redevelopment projects, their obstacle-like form also aligned to a haunted house. It’s a reminder that what has been created demands attention and ignoring previous structures only leads to future disaster.
Exorcism is one end for ghost stories. The removal or cleansing of spirits is often associated with malevolent entities, poltergeists and demons who seek to harm present inhabitants of a place.
The process of river dredging involves removal of toxic sludge from the Chicago river, often from the layer of muck and mud at the bottom where toxins and biological material has built up. This exorcism seeks to clean the waters that have been mistreated.
Chicago’s industrial history viewed the river and lake as a dumping ground and during the industrial boom these bodies of water were subjected into ‘water-ways’ tools of trade and travel with no use outside of the human. Chicago’s meat packing industry led to a high amount of biological waste being dumped in the river making it unsafe.
The current process of river dredging involves storing the toxic sludge on the lakeshore where it still has a high risk of seeping into the lake and contaminating clean, fresh water. This storage is an unsuccessful exorcism. Removing the sludge only to reconceal it continues to put communities at risk and reinforces a history of environmental racism as the storage sits at the Southside and Eastside neighborhoods. These communities have been overburdened historically with proximity to industrial sites and harsh chemicals as other industrial sites towards the north side or loop were decommissioned and have undergone significant transformation and restoration work, such as The River Walk.
When a spirit is not removed, exorcised forcefully or led to a peaceful crossing over, the ghost remains haunting on through eternity. The ghosts of pollution remain as vocal as ever, lingering in the river and in our communities only one bad storm away from reminding us what they are capable of.
When the rains come they come heavily, dumping water on the ground at a rapid pace. The sky goes dark, the winds howl, and the rainfall itself can be so dense you hardly even see. As it keeps coming and coming, the waters rise. The river, the lake, roads and yards flood with murky and stagnant water. Basement walls and floors are seeping with it. Sometimes it seems like it may never end.
Chicago uses a combined sewer system so sewage and storm water goes into the same pipes. This system catches water in treatment facilities and then dumps the water into the Chicago river where it flows backwards and carries our waste away to other places, through the Mississippi and to the Gulf of Mexico where there is a growing dead zone. When the sewer system becomes overwhelmed, which is happening more and more due to increases in flash floods and rain events, sewage can overflow and lead to untreated water bypassing treatment facilities and ending up in the river. It can also lead to draining systems becoming overwhelmed and leading to flooding.
Chicago’s Southside is most prone to flooding due to less infrastructure being present, less green architecture being installed, a lack of permeable surfaces, and the city’s flat topography flooding areas close to the original mouth of the river.
Ghostly Waters
Photos: Eliza Marley and Chicago Art Institute Archive
With climate crisis creeping in from all around us it can feel like we are all trapped in some kind of global, haunted house. It is true that we are moving towards an uncertain future and that the ghosts of our past continue to make themselves seen and heard in the streets, parks, and beaches around us. But that does not have to only be a scary thing. Ghost stories can remind us of how far we have come and the work still left to do.
Progress has been made in making Chicago cleaner and important restoration and preservation work is being carried out everyday by community members and determined, local organizations. At all levels, people are trying to build a Chicago we can proud of and sustain. These are some of the many organizations / projects I have had the pleasure of speaking with across development of this project:
LVEJO - Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal corridor project, working to support a clean river
The Wild Mile - West Chicago site featuring a blend of human and nonhuman architecture, working to study river ecology and provide a range of events and educational opportunities.
Roots and Routes - Fostering community and artist spaces in the Burnham Wildlife Corridor
Chicago Deep Tunnel project - A plan to assist in the management of heavy rainfall and prevent untreated sewage leakage
McCormick Bridgehouse & Chicago River Museum - Learn about the Chicago River
Friends of the Chicago River - Organization carrying out restoration and preservation work across the Chicago-Calumet River system
Urban Rivers - Organization building sites which foster nonhuman spaces as well as community access to wildlife
