From: Haunted Pittsburgh LLC PITTSBURGHS MYSTERIOUS FOURTH RIVER When they were building the U.S. Steel Building on Grant Street in the late 60s, a scuba diver working on the foundation had a terrible scare, or so the story goes. He ventured into the Fourth River that flows beneath the Golden Triangle and purportedly encountered albino catfish as big as calves. Leave it to Pittsburghers. Its not enough that weve got three rivers, we want four. So, is true? Is there really a Fourth River under the city? If so, did someone goof when they named our former North Side sports venue Three Rivers Stadium? Yes, there is a body of water 54 feet beneath the city that supplies the great fountain at the Point and that serves as a source of water for many downtown buildings. But, no, you cant take a boat ride on it, and there arent any catfish as big as calves swimming around in it. Its an aquifier, an underground layer of porous and permeable sediment of ice age origin that is saturated with water. It actually has a name -- the Wisconsin Glacial Flow, because it was formed by the Wisconsin ice sheet that that covered much of North America during the ice age 70,000 years ago. In some places, its 80 feet thick, deeper than our rivers. Its been compared to an oval tunnel, filled with rocks, sand, and gravel. The sides and bottom are solid rock and the top is silt and clay. Wells that supply certain downtown buildings are sunk into the aquifier because its a more stable and generally cleaner source of water than the nice rivers from which most people get their water. The fountain at the Point uses it because theres less debris to clog the pumps. Given the chronic problems with the fountain, less debris to clog the pumps seems like a good idea. So forget about having a Pittsburgh Four Rivers Regatta. But at least some folks who work or live downtown can make their friends envious by bragging that they drink from the Wisconsin Glacial Flow. GHOST TOURS THIS WEEKEND: hauntedpittsburghtours/
Posted on: Tue, 30 Sep 2014 20:41:04 +0000
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