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The biggest river (other than the Mississippi): 400 kilometres (250 miles long). This river flows southwestward and joins the Mississippi just north of St Louis. A canal connects the headwaters of the Illinois with Lake Michigan, thus providing a throughway for barges between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi. The Illinois has been dammed in many places both to provide water supply and recreational water and to help in navigation. The Illinois Waterway connects Lake Michigan via the Chicago, Des Plaines and Illinois Rivers with the Mississippi over a distance of 525 kilometres (325 miles). It was opened in 1933. It was not the first canal, the Illinois and Michigan Canal being opened in 1849, together with earlier dams and locks built on the Illinois River in the late 19th century. It provides a waterway with a minimum depth of 3 m (9 feet). To achieve this water is diverted from Lake Michigan. The Chicago River has been reversed, so that it now flows out of the lake, where previously it flowed into it. A canal (originally the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal) whose purpose was to get sewage to flow away from Lake Michigan, then joins the Chicago and Des Plaines rivers. Over the length of the waterway there are just seven locks to negotiate a fall of 50 m (160 feet). |
