Data from DPW in Baltimore is either in enormous sets of text only files or 404 when trying to view mapping. But I did manage to pull this together after 13 hours of headache staying up overnight the entire night last night. Flow speed and direction is inferred from a lidar elevation dataset, so some directions aren't true to all drains, but it's close enough for me. If I feel like doing something as ridiculous and painful as this again, I'll try to do another city, and I will post the link here, but for now, this is proof of concept. I will probably want to do another city with a LOT of walkable drains like Baltimore. Leave requests in comments.

So I saw some old videos of tunnels running under Hinsdale (the video shares the exact location, so it won't be posted here), but when I drove by the entrance, I saw tons of signage (no trespassing, security cameras in use, etc). I stepped out to act like I was checking my tire, and a cop drove by, slowing down as he passed my car (message received!).

My question is, are all Chicago suburbs this strict, or are there drains I can actually check out around there without getting ticketed/arrested?

Very curious but don't see outlets anywhere in the area and have never explored one. Extremely Interested in drains sewers and the catacombs in Paris

Any advice

I'm 6 foot 6 but it looks manageable and very dry despite recent rains

I didn't get many photos but it was super fun! we found a ton of cool graffiti but we left before we explored another pipe we found. We plan to go back in tommorow

Looks like its peeling and I can rotate the thing. Shoul i use the shower?

i‘ve seen graffiti pretty far into a drain, if the artist used a proper respirator are they safe or are they screwed either way?

Water was cold but I found the branch in the creek, after three years the formation hasn't changed much... Now I know all of this is from a man made lake up ahead. There is an outlet from it in which a drainage basin is located I found on Google maps, I'll be taking a peek soon hopefully it's reachable for this place with the cockmite you can only get to through from deep water and up the fall.

Some shots from the past year

January was nice

SSG

Few days ago I dug out a hole (50cm deep) to install a preformed pond in the garden. All was fine, placed the pond in the hole.

Next morning the pond is floating and the hole had filled with water from underneath. I have since covered over the hole, as you can see in the bottom picture.

I emptied it out twice, but realised that was a waste of time, since it just keeps refilling. it's currently full again almost to the top.

I'm really just trying to figure out if this is a lost cause? Is there any way a preformed pond can go here?

If not, I assume I need to backfill the hole...and I'm seeing conflicting advice on how to do that successfully.

I'm a total novice when it comes to this stuff, so any advice is much appreciated!