Logo by Bobby Sutton

We need to have a community event to properly write the history, but here's the short version:

The river in Chicago used to be healthy, curving, winding through the land. Changing course from year to year. There were wetlands along the banks full of life. But as the city was founded and grew, pollution fouled the drinking water of the lake and in a misguided attempt to fix the problem, the river was reversed downtown and the North Branch of the river was channelized. This means that they cut the riverbanks and forced it to be straight, forever destroying the habitat and ecosystems along the riverbanks.

Now, if you ever take a fluid dynamics course in college you will learn that "nature abhors a straight line." And rivers meander. They flow faster on the outside of any curve, eroding there and depositing silt on the slower inside of the curve. Thus, curves become big bends and eventually horseshoe lakes are formed. So rivers naturally tend to erode and change course. For the last hundred years, in the U.S., we've tried to stop this. It's difficult and it's near impossible to keep gently sloping sides with habitat for frogs, turtles, herons, and other creatures when the bank is constantly eroding and collapsing.

And the river was polluted. Filled with industrial poisons, heavy metals, and raw sewage overflows. Now, over the last 20 years, a huge project (the Deep Tunnel) has caused much less raw sewage to flow into our river (only once a month now on average?) And, thanks to the work of everyone at Friends of the Chicago River, pollution is much reduced in general.

What's amazing is that the river which was dead has come back to life. 72 species of fish.

People canoe. They fish even. hopefully not for dinner, but some people are too hungry to worry about poisons.

The river which was like an open sewer has much improved.. We rejoice over this.

But there is much work to be done.

But, if you sit by the river at sunset and see the Great Blue Heron and the beavers.. sometimes turtles.. and canoes. Well, that is good for your soul.

Let's keep working!