Yesterday, eight members of a powerful board in Chicago promised to change business as usual and vote to disinfect billions of gallons of sewage that’s dumped into Chicago waters every day. After more than a decade of resisting public demands, eight of nine commissioners of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago (MWRD) publicly stated that on June 16^th, they will stand up and vote for a cleaner and safer river.

We applaud the commissioners for reading the writing on the wall, though it would have been hard to miss given the array of powerful interests lining up in support of disinfection. US EPA, Senator Dick Durbin, Congressman Mike Quigley, Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, Chicago aldermen, even the Illinois Pollution Control Board, have recognized that it is time for Chicago to lose the unhappy distinction of being the only major U.S. city not disinfecting its wastewater.

We also applaud you and our steadfast clean water allies in Chicago for joining with Prairie Rivers Network in the fight to make Chicago’s waters healthy and accessible to all.

What will the June 16^th vote mean? If everything goes as planned, MWRD will be required to disinfect at its Calumet and North Side sewage treatment plants. These plants dump wastewater into the Chicago River and the Calumet Sag Channel. Disinfection will kill the pathogens, or germs, that can make people who swim, fish or boat in the water sick.

But what will it cost us? It was surprising to learn that MWRD is one of the lowest cost providers of sewage treatment in the U.S. As such, Chicago’s sewer bills are now lower than many other cities. Even with disinfection, total annual sewer bills will remain lower than other cities in the region. US EPA has estimated a cost increase of $38.53/ year or $3.21/month for a home valued at $267,000, the average home value in Cook County.

A growing number of river enthusiasts, Prairie Rivers Network members among them, are using Chicago’s waters for fishing, paddling, swimming and general rollicking. Now we can safely say, “Come join us.”

This story was covered on June 15, 2011 in the Medill Reports of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.

Photo credit: NASA

American Rivers, a national river conservation organization, named both the Chicago and Mississippi Rivers in its 2011 “America’s Most Endangered Rivers” report issued earlier this week. The list “…is a call to action for rivers at a crossroads, whose fates will be determined in the coming year.”

For the Chicago River, the report highlights the 1.2 billion gallons of sewage effluent released daily into the Chicago River that has not been disinfected. This polluted water creates threats to public health that could be alleviated if Chicago’s Metropolitan Water Reclamation District fully treated its sewage. In positive news, federal officials have stated that the current situation will not be allowed to continue.

The Mississippi River’s current record water levels and resulting unprecedented flooding caused American Rivers to give it the unusual designation of a “Special Mention” in its report. The economic damage from the flooding, the displacement of people and wildlife, and the impacts on water quality from sewage, excess nutrients and other pollution in the  flood waters underscore the need to rethink, recreate and adapt our flood prevention strategies and restoration efforts to work with, not against, the river. Read more about this issue.

New pollution standards will mean Chicago sewage gets disinfected

On May 11th, the USEPA told Illinois EPA that if they don’t insist on tougher pollution standards for the Chicago River, the Cal-Sag Channel and the Little Calumet River “promptly,” then USEPA will do it for them. This news was greeted with agreement from various environmental groups who have long argued for the river to be made cleaner, as was covered on Chicago’s ABC- TV station, WLS. Read the letter from USEPA here.

This is great news for the growing numbers of people who are using these waters for boating, fishing, and swimming.  Right now, the treated sewage that makes up a large amount of the water in the Chicago River, the Cal-Sag Channel and the Little Calumet River is not disinfected. This puts people at risk of contracting illnesses when they are in and on the water. Chicago is the only major city in America (and the industrialized world) that does not disinfect its sewage (yuck!). In fact, this daily discharge of 1.2 billion gallons of undisinfected sewage into the Chicago River system has earned the river a place on the annual list of America’s Most Endangered Rivers. People are talking, as no city (especially with a new mayor!), would want to be in the headlines for such a designation.

With new standards in place, the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District, which operates Cook County’s sewage treatment plants, will likely have to disinfect sewage at the massive Calumet and Northside Wastewater Treatment Plants that dump to the Chicago River, the Cal-Sag Channel and the Little Calumet River.

The Chicago waterways were little more than an open sewer for nearly a hundred years. The 1972 Clean Water Act slowly resulted in cleaner water, so that we now have the opportunity for much more – for an asset and amenity running through the heart of the city to complement the gem that is Lake Michigan. USEPA’s action is yet another development, like the Asian carp crisis and our lawsuit against the Water District for illegal pollution, that point towards the need to re-think how we live with the waterways. Now is the time to re-invent the Chicago River and canals to provide upgraded wastewater and transportation infrastructure, world-class recreational and tourism opportunities, and healthy waters and people.

This post was updated on May 19, 2011 to reflect new press coverage.

The Chicago Tribune and many other news outlets covered our recent lawsuit against the Chicago Metropolitan Water Reclamation District (MWRD) to stop the routine dumping of raw sewage and under-treated wastewater into the Chicago River and Lake Michigan. During heavy rains (anything more than 2/3 of an inch), the pipes that would normally send a combination of wastewater and stormwater to Chicago sewage treatment plants cannot cope with the sheer amount of water and sewage and instead overflow, releasing that bacteria-laden water directly into nearby waters. The regular discharge of water from these treatment plants contains too much phosphorus which causes excessive growth of algae, blocking sunlight and using up oxygen that fish and other aquatic animals need to survive. The release of raw sewage and excessive phosphorous are both in violation of the federal Clean Water Act. The MWRD has actually been under investigation by federal regulators for nearly a decade, but no action has been taken.

A draft agreement on April 21 calls for more specific deadlines to finish the Deep Tunnel project, a labyrinth of large tunnels and reservoirs underground that serve as a holding area for excess water. The MWRD would also pay $670,000 in fines and spend $325,000 on “green infrastructure” that allows rainwater to better absorb into the ground rather than running off into sewers. This pales in comparison to the city of Cleveland, OH, which recently agreed to spend $42 million on green infrastructure and pay fines of $1.2 million.

The lawsuit was brought by Prairie Rivers Network, the Sierra Club, and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). Read the Chicago Tribune article here.

See these additional resources about reducing stormwater pollution:

Prairie Rivers Network’s Stormwater Management Guidebook, a guide to green infrastructure with examples throughout Illinois.

Rooftops to Rivers and Re-Envisioning the Chicago River (published by the Natural Resources Defense Council).  The first is a guide to green strategies for controlling stormwater and combined sewer overflows, and the second includes the benefits of green infrastructure specifically for the Chicago region, with a summary of how everything relates to invasive species such as the Asian Carp.

The lawsuit was also covered in these news outlets:

Huffington Post

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

The Pantagraph (Bloomington-Normal)

Park Forest ENews (Chicago area)

Mother Nature Network

Northwest Indiana Times

Serial Spillers: Groups Sue to Stop Chicago Water Regulators from Polluting the Chicago River

MWRD’s illegal sewage discharges mucking waterways from Chicago to Gulf of Mexico

CHICAGO (May 3, 2011) – A coalition of conservation groups have sued to stop the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District (MWRD) from dumping raw sewage mixed with stormwater, as well as algae-fueling pollution, into the Chicago River system. Effluent from MWRD’s sewage treatment plants and combined sewer overflow pipes regularly violate Clean Water Act standards in the River, impacting downstream waters from Chicago all the way to the Gulf of Mexico according to the suit.

“Keeping raw sewage out of our waters is the District’s core responsibility,” said Ann Alexander, Senior Attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council. “Yet the problem continues unabated, even after three decades and billions of taxpayer dollars. Chicagoland shouldn’t have to wait any longer for the District to do its job right.”

NRDC, Sierra Club and Prairie Rivers Network filed a federal lawsuit today in the Northern District of Illinois over the regional water treater’s pollution problem. The suit points to discharges of pollution from treatment plants that regularly violate federal standards requiring that discharges not cause or contribute to low levels of oxygen, which fish need to breathe; and unnatural sludge or growth of algae, which harms other forms of life in the water.

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View Prairie River Notes – Spring 2011 Newsletter with the following articles.

• Innovative Paths to Cleaner Water: Prairie Rivers Network Uses Clean Water Law to Help Communities Reduce Pollution
• Greetings from Glynnis
• An Open Letter to Prairie Rivers Network Staff and Members: From Member Carol Wock
• Prairie Rivers Network Supports Bill to Make Factory Farms Pay for Their Permit to Pollute
• Heartland Coalfield Alliance Unites Groups Working to Move Beyond Coal
• Prairie Rivers Network to Sue Chicago Polluter
• Grassroots Groups Fight Coal Pollution
• 2010 Annual Report