Water Quality Standards: Cleaning the Chicago River

Openlands is celebrating the recent chain of events that are accelerating the adoption of stronger water quality standards for the Chicago Area Waterways. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA), in its May 11 determination letter, directed the state to protect the growing number of people that who canoe, kayak, row, swim, or otherwise recreate on and in parts of the Calumet and Chicago River system. As a result, the Illinois Pollution Control Board (IPCB), after 50 days of hearings, plans to move one step closer to finalizing new recreational use designations on rivers from Skokie to Joliet and through the Calumet area. This is the first of four parts of a massive effort to overhaul regional water quality standards for the first time in almost 40 years:

• A growing number of people recreate on and in the water. Over the last four years, Openlands, Friends of the Chicago River, and other key organizations, demonstrated to the IPCB that people are increasingly recreating on and in the Chicago Area Waterways. (Click  here to view the CAWS Recreational Access Map, which Openlands developed.) Openlands President & CEO Jerry Adelmann and Laura Barghusen, an Openlands ecologist, testified how our region (including MWRD) committed billions of dollars over the last decade, transforming our rivers into a recreational amenity and economic asset. Communities are investing in boat launches, riverfront parks, riverwalks, and trails, and are attracting recreation-oriented business and development. We have now realized many of the goals in the Northeastern Illinois Regional Water Trail Plan to accommodate the increasing number of people that canoe and kayak our rivers.
• The Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago must disinfect its effluent to eliminate bugs that can make these people sick. The U.S. EPA and IPCB underscored that Illinois must protect people who are recreating on and in the water. To do this, there is only one answer. The Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago (MWRD) must disinfect the 1.17 billion gallons of partially treated sewage that it releases into Chicago’s rivers every day to dramatically reduce the bugs in the water that can make people sick. Every other major metropolitan city in the nation already disinfects its wastewater. Openlands, along with Friends of the Chicago River and other key organizations, rallied support from government agencies and residents alike to speak with a resounding voice in support of this key step for both public health and the vitality of our region. On May 18, 2011, 43 aldermen on the City of Chicago's Committee on Health, Energy and Environmental Protection passed a resolution in support of disinfection as a first step towards cleaning up the Chicago River.  In a landmark decision on June 7, 2011, MWRD approved a policy to disinfect effluent at its North Side and Calumet treatment plants, which will pave the way towards cleaning up the river in these busy recreation areas.  US Senators Duk Durbin and Mark Kirk, along with Congressman Mike Quigley have pledged bipartisan support to find federal funding to make this happen.
• Chicago’s rivers harbor and connect a diversity of aquatic life. IPCB is evaluating the aquatic life habitat that could be supported by the Chicago, Calumet and Lower Des Plaines Rivers. The IEPA proposal for stronger standards shows how much the resurgence of wildlife is a reflection water quality improvements in the CAWS and Lower Des Plaines River over the last thirty five years. Openlands and its partners demonstrated how wildlife is returning to the area— great blue heron wade and river otters swim in waters that are home to growing populations and varieties of  fish. Wildlife both lives in the rivers and uses them as an aquatic highway to reach other high-quality tributaries, such as  Jackson Creek. Laura Barghusen, an Openlands ecologist, testified before the IPCB about the importance of connectivity, especially in times of drought, when fish need to escape low waters into larger rivers, like the Lower Des Plaines River, to find refuge, or to travel to other rivers with suitable habitat.
• Fish need more oxygen and lower temperatures to thrive. The IEPA proposal before the IPCB requires better temperature controls and more oxygen in the water for fish to live and reproduce. Fish can’t live in water that is too hot. Higher temperatures also make it so water can’t hold as much oxygen. Setting new baseline conditions for aquatic life in the area would require MWRD to build additional aeration stations to infuse parts of the river with more oxygen, and for power plants like Fisk and Crawford to cool the water they discharge into the rivers.   

As part of a deep-rooted vision for and investment in our local waterways, numerous agencies and organizations—the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Illinois Department of Natural Resources (IDNR), the Office of the Illinois Attorney General, the Cook County Forest Preserves, and the City of Chicago, among many others—support updating our standards to reflect the growing number of people and wildlife on the water. Openlands is a proud partner in a long-standing coalition of organizations that are cleaning up the Chicago Area Waterways, including Chicago Legal Clinic, Environmental Law & Policy Center, Friends of the Chicago River, Natural Resources Defense Council, Prairie Rivers Network, and Sierra Club, Illinois Chapter.

To join us in supporting better recreation and healthier wildlife, we encourage you visit American Rivers to send an e-letter or to write:

John Theriault, Acting Clerk at the Illinois Pollution Control Board
100 West Randolph, 11th Floor
Chicago, Illinois 60601  
(Please include the reference number “R2008-09" on your letter.)

For more details about Openlands’ work on this issue, please read public testimony by Openlands President & CEO Gerald Adelmann and Associate Greenways Director Laura Barghusen. For more information about water quality standards, please contact Openlands Policy Coordinator Stacy Meyers-Glen via e-mail or by phone at 312-863-6265