Down Chicago’s Drain

Will the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District finally be forced to clean up the Chicago River? According to a recent Chicago Tribune article, a meeting earlier this month by the Illinois Pollution Control Board changed the official designation of areas of the river to include recreational use.

Previously the MWRD has refused to disinfect wastewater discharged from its sewage treatment plants under the Catch-22 assumption that if the Chicago River was too polluted for recreational boating, it was not necessary to fully treat the discharged water since no recreational users were being affected.

An infographic published with the article charts the astoundingly high levels of colony-forming units (CFUs) of fecal-coliform bacteria in the North Branch of the Chicago and the Little Calumet Rivers downstream from two of the three metro sewage plants (the channel next to the largest Stickney sewage plant is an industrial shipping channel not generally used for recreational boating).

Apologists at the MWRD point out that disinfecting the wastewater discharged into the river will not fully clean the waterway, because it is still subject to Combined Sewage Outflows (CSOs) during heavy rainstorms, when rainwater overloads the underground pipes and combined sewage and stormwater must be released into the river so that it does not back up into nearby basements. The engineering solution to that problem, the Deep Tunnel which is supposed to capture overload water, is still years away from completion, even 38 years after the project started.

The Plastiki, a catamaran made from recycled plastic bottles, has finally arrived in Sydney, Australia after 130 days sailing from San Francisco. The boat will be open for tours for the next several weeks, and you can read about the adventure on the Plastiki blog:

www.theplastiki.com

Governor Pat Quinn announced a deal today to export up to 30 million pounds of Asian Carp to China. A fish processing plant in downstate Pearl, IL will be expanded using $2 million of state funds.

Chicagoist provides a concise summary of how plans to stop the Asian Carp are tied to the future of the Chicago River.

Also, an excellent two-part article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel which tells the history of the Chicago River, its current degraded state and how the river is still connected to the growth of the region.

Chicago and Milwaukee have thrown insults at each other in the past over each city's stewardship of Lake Michigan. Politicians in Chicago blame Milwaukee for beach closures whenever a storm overflows Milwaukee's sewer system into the lake. In civilized Illinois, the implication is, we don't dump sewage back into the same lake where we get our drinking water. But as the Journal Sentinel article shows, Chicago's ability to drain its waste away from the city, out of sight, has allowed it to dump far more untreated sewage into the environment than Milwaukee ever does, by sending it all downstream and out of mind.

Last week's discovery of a carp in Lake Calumet has added extra urgency to plans for separating the Great Lakes and Illinois River ecosystems. At the Shedd Aquarium on Friday Senator Dick Durbin announced a bill to be introduced this week that will force the Army Corps of Engineers to study the possibilities of physically separating the Chicago and Calumet rivers from the Illinois River (which would require re-reversing their flow back to Lake Michigan). The costs for such a project will be enormous, as well as the costs of transferring shipping across the barricade. But the danger to the Great Lakes ecosystem is equally great.

The Scrappers movie is finally screening! It will make its world premiere at the Chicago Underground Film Festival on Sunday June 27, as well as on Thursday July 1.

On Tuesday a lone Bighead Carp was discovered during population sampling in Lake Calumet. The fish is well beyond the electric barricade set up to stop invasive species from accessing Lake Michigan. Whether the dreaded Asian Carp has made it into the lake and will be able to establish a breeding population remains to be seen.

Mike and I are reprising our trashboat journey with a bike trip following the Illinois River to St. Louis. I'll be taking the train home from St. Louis, while Mike continues on biking solo to California.

After a lazy start, we leave my backyard garden behind, with a tail-wind pushing us south all the way!

Leaving Chicago, we follow old Route 66 out of the city. Rolling on past my favorite, Snuffy's Grill, we opt for a lunch stop on an abandoned section of highway in the shade of overgrown trees. This section of Route 66 was closed in 1998 after quarries on each side of the road started to undermine the road.

Looking over the edge it's a long way down! Its surprising to see such topography after just leaving flat Chicago. In the distance beyond the quarry we can see the line of the Des Plaines River where we floated our trashboat downstream in an epic flood. The presence of limestone not far under the soil here no doubt accounts for the rapids we encountered a few miles down river.

Making our way south on city streets, rural highways and bike paths, we finally make it to our first small town outside the city, Lockport. The town was once the headquarters of the I&M Canal, which opened to barge shipping all the way upstream from St. Louis to Chicago in 1848. A quiet remnant of the canal is still here, at the start of a bike path that we will follow west for 80 miles.

Hurrying through Joliet as the afternoon wears on, we cross the wide Des Plaines River on an old iron bascule bridge, and pass the riverfront tavern where we ended our trashboat journey three years ago. Too bad we are in too much of a hurry to stop in for a drink and to see if Keith, the riverman we met back then, was still around.

Due to our late start, we end up racing the sunset to camp even with the longest daylight of the year. After a water stop in Channahon, we make it to McKinley Woods, for some secret off-trail camping. A picturesque stone overlook built by the Civilian Conservation Corps gives us an escape from the mosquitos while we eat dinner, and there's time for a refreshing swim in the river. Across the dark water, behind an island, the Kankakee comes in from the south, merging with the Des Plaines to birth the united Illinois River at this point.

The Chicago Tribune reports today on a surprise letter sent to the state of Illinois, the EPA and Obama administration recommended that the Chicago River be made clean enough for swimming. Environmental groups have long argued that water from sewage treatment plants must be disinfected before it is discharged into the river. Wastewater from these plants is the primary source of harmful bacteria in the river, as well as drainage pipes carrying combined sewage and storm runoff which overflow into the river when filled with rainwater, pictured in the chart above.

The Metropolitan Water Reclamation District has argued that the extra electricity required to disinfect wastewater will increase carbon emissions leading to global warming.

Mayor Daley responded to the EPA letter with annoyance that the feds might interfere in local politics. But if the extra attention from Washington helps clean up the Chicago river, what's wrong with that?

Momentum Magazine #44 (page 48) featured a small item with a photo of Eric Parsons of Anchorage, Alaska, paddling an inflatable Pakraft loaded with a Surly Pugsley across an Alaskan fjord. On land the Pakraft can be rolled into a small bag and carried on the bike's handlebars, while on water the bike can be ferried at the front of the small boat. The bike's fat frame and wide tires even allow it to float if it falls overboard.