In downtown Chicago the bridges over the Chicago rive are a steel mesh material to help keep the bridges free of snow in the winter and also to allow them to be raised as MANY boats travel there every dave. 3 weeks ago the DMB was accused of releasing their tour bus storage tanks on the bridge and onto a tour boat passing underneath making dozens of people ill. DMB denied it was them and cited their "green" image. Now tapes have come out showing the illegal dumping of his dump.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/Music/08/25/bus.waste.ap/index.html
http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-dave25.html
and
must register
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-0408250268aug25,1,409038.story?coll=chi-news-hed
Madigan: Video busts band's bus in dumping
Tour boat waste case may stain Dave Matthews Band's `green' image
By Michael Hawthorne
Tribune staff reporter
Published August 25, 2004
The Dave Matthews Band, a rock group so "green" it has its own flavor of Ben and Jerry's ice cream, could face $70,000 in fines after one of its tour bus drivers allegedly dumped a tankful of human waste on a Chicago River sightseeing boat earlier this month.
After a two-week investigation into an incident that prompted outrage from Chicago's mayor and snickering from late-night television hosts, Illinois Atty. Gen. Lisa Madigan on Tuesday accused the band and driver Stefan A. Whol of illegally dumping foul-smelling muck into the river and creating a public nuisance.
About two-thirds of the passengers on the upper deck of Chicago's Little Lady were doused with a brownish-yellow liquid as the tour boat crossed under the Kinzie Street bridge during an Aug. 8 architectural sightseeing cruise.
Some of the passengers suffered nausea and vomiting after the waste cascaded into their eyes and mouths and soaked their hair and clothing. Five went to Northwestern Memorial Hospital for tests.
Witnesses told authorities the deluge of waste came from a long black tour bus crossing the grated bridge. At least one witness gave police an Oregon license plate number.
Surveillance cameras at neighborhood businesses helped Madigan's investigators and Chicago police detectives trace the bus to Whol, a Texas man who is identified in the complaint as one of five drivers for the Dave Matthews Band, authorities said.
Whol was driving to pick up a band member at a Michigan Avenue hotel when the bus crossed the bridge, according to the three-count civil complaint filed in Cook County Circuit Court. Later that evening, the band played the second of two shows at Alpine Valley in East Troy, Wis.
A band publicist issued a statement Tuesday night saying, "Our driver has stated that he was not involved in this incident. We reserve any judgment until we see the evidence."
Luxury coaches like the ones leased by the band are equipped with 80- to 100-gallon waste tanks that are emptied underneath the vehicle by pushing a toggle switch behind the driver's seat, according to the attorney general's complaint.
In addition to seeking fines for violations of state laws, Madigan said she is asking the court to order an evaluation of the band's waste disposal practices. State officials said most charter buses dump waste at licensed disposal facilities.
"This incident may be unique, but that does not lessen the environmental or public health risks posed by the release of at least 800 pounds of liquid human waste into a busy waterway and onto a crowded tour boat," Madigan said in a statement. "This situation clearly demonstrates the environmental and public health problems that can occur when laws are ignored. This act was not only offensive, it was illegal."
Two weeks ago, another driver for the band, Jerry Fitzpatrick, denied responsibility for the incident, saying his bus had been parked at a nearby hotel at the time. He even coaxed a Downstate police officer to inspect the bus and report that the waste tank was nearly full.
"This band is very environmentally conscious," Fitzpatrick said then. "We wouldn't have anything to do with this sort of thing."
In several interviews, Dave Matthews has said one of the reasons his band contributes to environmental causes is to offset air pollution from its tour buses.
Ben and Jerry's, the socially conscious ice cream maker, named its One Sweet Whirled flavor (caramel and coffee ice cream with marshmallow and caramel swirls and coffee-flavored fudge chips) after one of the band's songs. Half of the band's royalties from sales of the ice cream are donated to a coalition of environmental groups to combat global climate change.
In Chicago, the tour boat incident provoked an angry Mayor Richard Daley to promise that the culprit would be caught. All of the 120 passengers on the ill-fated sightseeing cruise were given refunds for their $25 tickets. Some later filed insurance claims with the tour operators seeking compensation for clothing and personal items that got soaked.
"It's not about the money for us," said Lynn Osmond, president and CEO of the Chicago Architectural Foundation, which operates the boat tour. "It's about the fact that somebody dumped on our customers."
Nancy Todor, an Elmhurst resident whose 43rd birthday was ruined when she got caught in the rain of waste, said a $70,000 fine seemed like an inadequate punishment for the band.
Perhaps, she said, Matthews should perform a concert for the sullied boat customers.
Holly Agra, co-owner of the tour boat, said the incident was an abrupt departure from the usual glowing media coverage of one of the city's most popular tourist attractions.
"We can't afford to have our image damaged," Agra said recently. "We don't want this sticking on us for the rest of our careers."
Tribune staff reporter Maegan Carberry contributed to this report.
Copyright © 2004, Chicago Tribune
Eye witness account
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-040810waste,1,762212.story?coll=chi-news-hed
'People sat in stunned anger'
Published August 10, 2004, 1:07 PM CDT
Tribune staff reporter Brett McNeil, who filed Monday's report on the foul liquid that drenched passengers on a Chicago tour boat, was one of those passengers. Here's his first-person account.
Mostly what I remember is people gagging.
Before that, I remember our lightly lisping docent say what a beautiful day it was to catch the city's river bend reflection on the green glass of 333 W. Wacker Drive. And, really, it was: just this cool and sunny day with billowy white-gray clouds floating in a deep blue sky.
We were puttering along the Chicago River, watching paddlers from the Flatwater Classic float by, craning to see the tops of sundry architectural marvels. A perfectly polite, boringly edifying way to spend the afternoon.
And then came a gush of goop raining across most of the upper-deck viewing platform.
From where I was seated, toward the front of the boat, I couldn't see what was dumping on us but figured it was a street cleaner or maybe one of those landscaping trucks that you see spraying arcs of water into the median weed beds along Ashland Avenue.
Somehow I got just the lightest little splash on my left shirtsleeve, while people two seats away were left squeezing gritty gunk from their sticky wet hair.
We passed under the bridge and the deluge seemed to pick up, getting stronger as the passengers toward the rear of the boat approached the waterfall. The stuff splat heavily on the deck, dousing dozens of white-haired ladies and gents in nylon windbreakers.
There was confusion.
Then the smell hit us.
An unmistakable stink: porta-potty juice.
"Oh, God." The woman next to me turned and said to no one, "I had my mouth open."
Another woman, whose white shirt was soaked in what looked like dirty wiper fluid, said nothing. She just stood up and surveyed the boat, her eyes registering what she was now wearing. Reflexively, she began heaving. She looked like she was drowning.
The docent was slow to understand the magnitude of what had happened. "It appears that some water has hit the boat," he said, ridiculously.
A guy from the back of the boat shouted: "That's not water, buddy! That's urine!"
The docent, still playing dullard, asked, "Should we go back?"
By then, though, the boat's crew was rushing in with wet naps and paper towels, and soon we were turning around and plowing back to dock in high gear. Damning the no wake zone, we sent recreational boaters splashing in our wake as Chicago's Little Lady churned for home.
People wiped off their glasses, took off their coats, and sat in stunned anger.
What could you do?
I was on the boat with my girlfriend and a friend of hers visiting from out of town. They, too, managed to avoid the worst of it and we hustled down into the boat's main cabin. There we could avoid the stench up top but could clearly hear people puking in the nearby bathrooms.
We sat downstairs, hugging the air-conditioner register for stench-free air, until back at the Michigan Avenue dock. I did not begin reporting about all this until after we'd gone to the Billy Goat Tavern and washed up in the bathrooms, which was a mistake.
Because I wanted to get my hands and face and hair clean, I didn't get the name of the guy who was standing on the sidewalk when I got off the boat wearing only his waterlogged khakis. Stripped to the waist, he was actually joking with a woman airing out her wet red dress.
"I feel like I'm in a bad Ben Stiller movie," he said.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/Music/08/25/bus.waste.ap/index.html
http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-dave25.html
and
must register
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-0408250268aug25,1,409038.story?coll=chi-news-hed
Madigan: Video busts band's bus in dumping
Tour boat waste case may stain Dave Matthews Band's `green' image
By Michael Hawthorne
Tribune staff reporter
Published August 25, 2004
The Dave Matthews Band, a rock group so "green" it has its own flavor of Ben and Jerry's ice cream, could face $70,000 in fines after one of its tour bus drivers allegedly dumped a tankful of human waste on a Chicago River sightseeing boat earlier this month.
After a two-week investigation into an incident that prompted outrage from Chicago's mayor and snickering from late-night television hosts, Illinois Atty. Gen. Lisa Madigan on Tuesday accused the band and driver Stefan A. Whol of illegally dumping foul-smelling muck into the river and creating a public nuisance.
About two-thirds of the passengers on the upper deck of Chicago's Little Lady were doused with a brownish-yellow liquid as the tour boat crossed under the Kinzie Street bridge during an Aug. 8 architectural sightseeing cruise.
Some of the passengers suffered nausea and vomiting after the waste cascaded into their eyes and mouths and soaked their hair and clothing. Five went to Northwestern Memorial Hospital for tests.
Witnesses told authorities the deluge of waste came from a long black tour bus crossing the grated bridge. At least one witness gave police an Oregon license plate number.
Surveillance cameras at neighborhood businesses helped Madigan's investigators and Chicago police detectives trace the bus to Whol, a Texas man who is identified in the complaint as one of five drivers for the Dave Matthews Band, authorities said.
Whol was driving to pick up a band member at a Michigan Avenue hotel when the bus crossed the bridge, according to the three-count civil complaint filed in Cook County Circuit Court. Later that evening, the band played the second of two shows at Alpine Valley in East Troy, Wis.
A band publicist issued a statement Tuesday night saying, "Our driver has stated that he was not involved in this incident. We reserve any judgment until we see the evidence."
Luxury coaches like the ones leased by the band are equipped with 80- to 100-gallon waste tanks that are emptied underneath the vehicle by pushing a toggle switch behind the driver's seat, according to the attorney general's complaint.
In addition to seeking fines for violations of state laws, Madigan said she is asking the court to order an evaluation of the band's waste disposal practices. State officials said most charter buses dump waste at licensed disposal facilities.
"This incident may be unique, but that does not lessen the environmental or public health risks posed by the release of at least 800 pounds of liquid human waste into a busy waterway and onto a crowded tour boat," Madigan said in a statement. "This situation clearly demonstrates the environmental and public health problems that can occur when laws are ignored. This act was not only offensive, it was illegal."
Two weeks ago, another driver for the band, Jerry Fitzpatrick, denied responsibility for the incident, saying his bus had been parked at a nearby hotel at the time. He even coaxed a Downstate police officer to inspect the bus and report that the waste tank was nearly full.
"This band is very environmentally conscious," Fitzpatrick said then. "We wouldn't have anything to do with this sort of thing."
In several interviews, Dave Matthews has said one of the reasons his band contributes to environmental causes is to offset air pollution from its tour buses.
Ben and Jerry's, the socially conscious ice cream maker, named its One Sweet Whirled flavor (caramel and coffee ice cream with marshmallow and caramel swirls and coffee-flavored fudge chips) after one of the band's songs. Half of the band's royalties from sales of the ice cream are donated to a coalition of environmental groups to combat global climate change.
In Chicago, the tour boat incident provoked an angry Mayor Richard Daley to promise that the culprit would be caught. All of the 120 passengers on the ill-fated sightseeing cruise were given refunds for their $25 tickets. Some later filed insurance claims with the tour operators seeking compensation for clothing and personal items that got soaked.
"It's not about the money for us," said Lynn Osmond, president and CEO of the Chicago Architectural Foundation, which operates the boat tour. "It's about the fact that somebody dumped on our customers."
Nancy Todor, an Elmhurst resident whose 43rd birthday was ruined when she got caught in the rain of waste, said a $70,000 fine seemed like an inadequate punishment for the band.
Perhaps, she said, Matthews should perform a concert for the sullied boat customers.
Holly Agra, co-owner of the tour boat, said the incident was an abrupt departure from the usual glowing media coverage of one of the city's most popular tourist attractions.
"We can't afford to have our image damaged," Agra said recently. "We don't want this sticking on us for the rest of our careers."
Tribune staff reporter Maegan Carberry contributed to this report.
Copyright © 2004, Chicago Tribune
Eye witness account
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-040810waste,1,762212.story?coll=chi-news-hed
'People sat in stunned anger'
Published August 10, 2004, 1:07 PM CDT
Tribune staff reporter Brett McNeil, who filed Monday's report on the foul liquid that drenched passengers on a Chicago tour boat, was one of those passengers. Here's his first-person account.
Mostly what I remember is people gagging.
Before that, I remember our lightly lisping docent say what a beautiful day it was to catch the city's river bend reflection on the green glass of 333 W. Wacker Drive. And, really, it was: just this cool and sunny day with billowy white-gray clouds floating in a deep blue sky.
We were puttering along the Chicago River, watching paddlers from the Flatwater Classic float by, craning to see the tops of sundry architectural marvels. A perfectly polite, boringly edifying way to spend the afternoon.
And then came a gush of goop raining across most of the upper-deck viewing platform.
From where I was seated, toward the front of the boat, I couldn't see what was dumping on us but figured it was a street cleaner or maybe one of those landscaping trucks that you see spraying arcs of water into the median weed beds along Ashland Avenue.
Somehow I got just the lightest little splash on my left shirtsleeve, while people two seats away were left squeezing gritty gunk from their sticky wet hair.
We passed under the bridge and the deluge seemed to pick up, getting stronger as the passengers toward the rear of the boat approached the waterfall. The stuff splat heavily on the deck, dousing dozens of white-haired ladies and gents in nylon windbreakers.
There was confusion.
Then the smell hit us.
An unmistakable stink: porta-potty juice.
"Oh, God." The woman next to me turned and said to no one, "I had my mouth open."
Another woman, whose white shirt was soaked in what looked like dirty wiper fluid, said nothing. She just stood up and surveyed the boat, her eyes registering what she was now wearing. Reflexively, she began heaving. She looked like she was drowning.
The docent was slow to understand the magnitude of what had happened. "It appears that some water has hit the boat," he said, ridiculously.
A guy from the back of the boat shouted: "That's not water, buddy! That's urine!"
The docent, still playing dullard, asked, "Should we go back?"
By then, though, the boat's crew was rushing in with wet naps and paper towels, and soon we were turning around and plowing back to dock in high gear. Damning the no wake zone, we sent recreational boaters splashing in our wake as Chicago's Little Lady churned for home.
People wiped off their glasses, took off their coats, and sat in stunned anger.
What could you do?
I was on the boat with my girlfriend and a friend of hers visiting from out of town. They, too, managed to avoid the worst of it and we hustled down into the boat's main cabin. There we could avoid the stench up top but could clearly hear people puking in the nearby bathrooms.
We sat downstairs, hugging the air-conditioner register for stench-free air, until back at the Michigan Avenue dock. I did not begin reporting about all this until after we'd gone to the Billy Goat Tavern and washed up in the bathrooms, which was a mistake.
Because I wanted to get my hands and face and hair clean, I didn't get the name of the guy who was standing on the sidewalk when I got off the boat wearing only his waterlogged khakis. Stripped to the waist, he was actually joking with a woman airing out her wet red dress.
"I feel like I'm in a bad Ben Stiller movie," he said.
j/k 
We all know they have the best curbs around
