Reducing Nutrient Pollution

In collaboration with the Sierra Club and Environmental Law and Policy Center, we pressed for long-overdue reductions in the amount of phosphorus that sewage treatment plants and others release into Illinois streams. In response, Illinois EPA proposed that phosphorus in new or increased wastewater discharges be reduced to just 1 mg per liter, a level that would significantly reduce excess algae growth and other problems in rivers and streams. We are now working to win the Pollution Control Board’s approval of this important change, the first significant limit on phosphorous discharges to Illinois streams.

Enforcing the Clean Water Act

We continued to closely monitor implementation and enforcement of the Clean Water Act and to intervene when agencies failed to fulfill their responsibilities under the act. For example, we sought to strengthen dozens of draft permits for municipalities, industries, and others who wanted to discharge pollutants into state streams. We intervened when proposed permits failed to meet the act’s standards, forcing the agency to require fuller compliance. When an association representing those who discharge wastewater into Illinois streams proposed pollution levels which would reduce dissolved oxygen in the state waters and negatively impact fish and other aquatic species, we initiated a campaign to oppose it, and are continuing work to prevent this unwarranted and damaging change.

Improving Chicago Area Waters and Minimizing the Impacts of Development

With partners such as the Environmental Law and Policy Center, Sierra Club and citizen groups along the Fox River, Manhattan Creek, Hickory Creek, and other streams, we continued to use the Clean Water Act to help protect streams in the rapidly developing Chicago region. We provided technical and organizing assistance to citizen groups, empowering them to influence community officials as sewage treatment plants were expanded to serve new households. We also served on Task Forces formed to consider improved water quality standards for the Des Plaines River, the Chicago River, and other area waters.

Engaging River Advocates

We developed new initiatives to inspire and equip citizens to care for Illinois rivers. Our “Illinois Stream Team” is a volunteer monitoring program that enables citizens to investigate and measure the chemical and physical quality of waters in rivers and streams, and report that information to a central database. In September we trained the first volunteers for the team. Our long-term goal is to have monitors in every Illinois watershed.

Our Storm Drain Stenciling program is part of a “Be River Smart Illinois” campaign which we launched to inform the general public of simple steps they can take to improve water quality and protect their rivers. Using kits that we assembled, volunteers can paint “Dump no waste – Drains to stream” notices on storm drains throughout their communities. Prairie Rivers is working with volunteers to stencil drains in Champaign, Urbana, and around the state.

Reforming Drainage Practices

We began a long-term effort to reform Illinois drainage practices. The Illinois Drainage Code, unchanged since the 1870′s, empowers hundreds of drainage districts throughout the state to levy taxes, channelize and dredge river beds, and clear trees from private property. Although these actions speed the movement of water from the land, they have enormous consequences for streams, including the destruction of fish and wildlife habitat and increased water temperatures, flood heights, and stream bank erosion. As part of our effort in this area, we worked with landowners to intervene in a drainage district’s plan to dredge and channelize a portion of the Salt Fork River, and began to build public awareness of alternatives to these practices, laying the foundation for a state-wide effort to improve drainage practices.

Enforcing the Clean Water Act

We continued to press for full implementation of the Clean Water Act to restore polluted waters and keep clean waters clean. This includes enforcement of the new anti-degradation policy to protect our highest quality waters, better land management and stormwater controls, and improved implementation of the watershed restoration program for degraded waters. With partner groups, we have taken steps to designate Illinois’ finest streams as Outstanding Resource Waters, in which no new pollution is allowed.

Empowering River Advocates

In January 2003, we trained 40 citizen activists to use the Clean Water Act to reduce pollution discharged to their hometown streams. Throughout the year, we worked with community advocates from New Lenox to Carbondale, challenging projects that would pollute streams and threaten fishing, swimming, and safe drinking water. We also continued to foster new groups that can become the eyes and ears of their rivers.

Ending Clean Water Act Exemptions for Mining

In 2001, we discovered that Illinois law exempted the mining industry from requirements of the Clean Water Act, allowing mining activities that pollute Illinois rivers. With the Environmental Law and Policy Center we challenged this violation of federal law. Now all mining permits that the Illinois EPA issues must first be reviewed by US EPA to ensure they meet Clean Water Act requirements. Since this new practice was adopted, the permits issued are some of the strongest we have seen in Illinois. While regulatory changes are needed to eliminate the exemption permanently, the agency and the industry are well aware that permits must comply with the federal law or be challenged by Prairie Rivers and our partners.

Improving Chicago Waters and Combating Unsound Development

With partners such as the Environmental Law and Policy Center and Sierra Club, we pressed Illinois EPA to significantly improve water quality standards for Chicago-area rivers to make these waters safe for recreation and aquatic life. In addition, when sewage treatment plants sought to expand their discharges to accommodate urban growth, we worked with local communities to ensure full compliance with the Clean Water Act, thereby reducing pollution discharges and minimizing the impacts of growth on water quality and river habitat.

Working in Our Own Backyard

We again co-hosted the annual Salt Fork River Clean-up, attracting nearly 200 volunteers to remove unsightly and hazardous trash from this scenic Champaign County stream. Plans are underway to initiate a similar event on the Sangamon River and to establish a new group to be the voice for that river. We hosted canoe tours for policy makers, developed a Vermilion Rivers educational display, and gave numerous presentations for local groups.

Protecting Our Best Streams

We took the lead in securing adoption in February of an “antidegradation policy” for Illinois rivers. By requiring that clean waters must stay that way and that the beneficial uses of those waters must be protected, the policy addresses one of the most critical and neglected aspects of Illinois’ clean water regulations. As a result, Illinois now has one of the nation’s most progressive anti-degradation policies—preserving biodiversity, protecting recreational uses, maintaining watershed integrity, and safeguarding the state’s most exceptional streams.

Holding Polluters Accountable

We continued to press for full implementation of the Clean Water Act as it applies to industries, municipalities, and other recognized sources of water pollution. We participated in state programs to repair waterways that currently violate water quality standards, commented on numerous discharge permits (in writing and at hearings we requested), called for improvements in water quality standards, and continued to press the state to improve its record of ensuring compliance with, and enforcement of, the Clean Water Act.

Training Others to Help Enforce the Clean Water Act

In June, with support from the Clean Water Network and River Network, we published an expanded edition of Permitting an End to Pollution. This first-of-its-kind handbook teaches citizens how to review and comment on water pollution permits, thereby giving them a voice in the process that affects the waterways they care about. This book is now being distributed nationally.

Reducing Pollution from Farm Runoff

Through one-on-one meetings and public forums, we encouraged farmers and landowners to become more actively involved in efforts to minimize pollutants that flow from our farms into our rivers.

Creating New River Conservation Organizations, and Building the Capacity of Existing Organizations

We helped local clean water advocates form the Friends of Kickapoo Creek and other organizations. Prairie Rivers Network also assisted many organizations with technical and organizational assistance to build their capacity and effectiveness.

Working In Our Own Backyards

We co-hosted the Fifth Annual Salt Fork River Clean-up, an event that enhances and raises public awareness of Prairie Rivers’ “hometown” stream. Also, as a member of the Salt Fork River Steering River Committee, we emphasized the need to restore and improve habitat and water quality and to halt destructive channelization and dredging projects. A small but visible aspect of our work included our response to an accidental fish-kill stemming from a discharge of ammonia in the River by the University of Illinois.

New Law Protects State’s Largest Rivers

Working with Representative Kurt Granberg (D-Carlyle), Prairie Rivers helped pass House Bill 3093, making it illegal for landowners to clearcut trees along the state’s largest rivers, also known as public, or navigable, waterways. The legislation protects these rivers from streambank erosion and preserves valuable riparian habitat.

Second Annual Salt Fork River Clean-Up

Prairie Rivers, with the Champaign County Forest Preserve District, the Salt Fork River Partners, and the Izaak Walton League, attracted 125 volunteers to the October river clean-up, despite less than ideal weather. While cleaning trash from the stream, volunteers gained new awareness of the need to protect and cherish this Champaign County resource.

Reducing Pollution to our Rivers

We reviewed and commented on over 60 requests submitted to Illinois EPA by industries, municipalities, and others who wanted permits to dump more pollutants into Illinois streams. We also testified at 8 public hearings, challenging plans to dump pollution into Illinois’ rivers. Through these steps we helped ensure that pollution was reduced in over half the permits we challenged and that steps would be taken to protect and preserve Illinois’ flowing waters.

Outreach and Education

To enlist citizens from across the state in efforts to restore and preserve Illinois’ streams and rivers, we presented Illinois Rivers: Alteration of a Landscape, our slide show about Illinois, its history, and the rivers’ place in that history, reaching over 1,200 people in 30 communities. We published our quarterly Prairie River Notes and distributed it to 350 individuals and organizations, including members of the media, and also published the Prairie Rivers Directory to more than 200 groups and agencies interested in river conservation in Illinois.

With the Illinois Student Environmental Network we co-hosted the 2000 Watershed Training Conference. Experts on river conservation and clean water policies from across the nation to taight 112 students and watershed group leaders how they can protect their rivers, particularly by using the Clean Water Act.

Exposed Illinois Farm Bureau

We published Dirty Water, Dirty Business, exposing how the Farm Bureau, the self-appointed leader of the agricultural industry, routinely blocks initiatives to promote water quality improvement and river conservation. We also issued several press releases on the Bureau’s activities and sent sign-on letters from 29 organizations to the Farm Bureau requesting that they become part of the solution to agricultural pollution, instead of part of the problem.