A FRESH LOOK AT THE CHICAGO RIVER

BY PATRICK BRAY WITH MIKE PADILLA, Chicago District

Since September 2010, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) Chicago District has completed projects to restore more than 1,000 acres of habitat in metropolitan Chicago, most of it along the Chicago River. In 2018, partnering with the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago and the Chicago Park District, the USACE Chicago District restored the riparian zones and embankments in River Park and Horner Park, to include the removal of a dam on the north branch of the river.

The next project could be Bubbly Creek, a former dumping ground for Chicago’s meatpacking industry, which still bubbles to this day. In partnership with the city of Chicago, USACE has studied restoration of the creek. This restoration would not be possible without the improvement to the river system due to Chicago’s Tunnel and Reservoir Plan (TARP).

Residents and kayakers enjoy a day in Horner Park in Chicago in September 2018 shortly after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Chicago District and the Chicago Park District reopened the restored riparian zone and embankment area next to the Chicago River. Since 2010, the Chicago District has completed projects to restore more than 1,000 acres of habitat in metropolitan Chicago, most of it along the Chicago River.

U.S. Army Photo by Patrick Bay

Throughout its natural history, the waters of the Chicago River fed Lake Michigan until a monumental project in 1900 altered the river to reverse the flow away from the lake. The new course would flush the water south, bringing along with it the waste of Chicago – stormwater runoff, garbage, industrial waste, and sometimes raw sewage.

How to manage storm waters in an impervious urban environment would continue to be the dominant engineering challenge in Chicago for several more decades, due in part to Chicago’s stormwater conveyance pipes being combined with wastewater and sewage pipes. The combined sewers are easily overwhelmed during heavy rain events, causing backflow into the basements of residents and businesses and overflow into city streets and highways. During massive storms, the combined sewers overflow into Lake Michigan, the drinking water source for millions of people.

In the 1970s, an environmental awakening would lead to the National Environmental Policy Act, the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency, and the passage of the Clean Air, Clean Water, and Endangered Species acts. These trends would also begin a new approach to how cities looked at their natural environment, to include the Chicago River.

TARP would be the new solution to the combined sewer engineering challenge, with USACE’s contribution being the massive McCook Reservoir to hold combined sewage overflow.

Now, more than 100 years after the river flow was reversed, and after completion of miles of tunnels and the McCook Reservoir, the Chicago River is cleaner and poised to see a greener future.

Because of TARP and restoration efforts, a growing ecosystem thrives throughout the river, with natural vegetation, fish and aquatic wildlife, and birds and other species that rely on the Chicago River as a way of life.