April 23, 2025 • 53 mins
The history books often referred to the reversal of the Chicago River as an engineering marvel, but how did they do it? Why did they do it? and Why is it important to learn about it? Join Phil Nicodemus from Urban Rivers as he discusses the history of the Chicago River and the historical and current work done on the Chicago River to support humans and biodiversity.
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Abigail Garofalo aeg9@illinois.edu, Erin Garrett emedvecz@illinois.edu, Amy Lefringhouse heberlei@illinois.edu
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Amy (00:06):
Welcome to another episode of the Everyday Environment
podcast, where we explore theenvironment we see everyday. I'm
your host, Amy Lefringhouse.
Abigail (00:15):
And I'm your cohost, Abigail Garofalo.
Amy (00:18):
And today, we are here with Phil Nicodemus. He is the
research director at UrbanRivers, and I took a look at
your picture, Phil, online, yourprofile pictures on the Urban
Rivers website, and it lookedlike you had some stylish,
maybe, chainsaw chaps on. Andthen maybe in other pictures, I
(00:41):
saw you in, waders, so you mustbe all over the place. So
Abigail (00:48):
Yes. Welcome.
Phil (00:50):
Thank you. That is mostly just to try out these different
accessories of field style and,you know, you gotta look good in
any situation, and that's thefirst and foremost
responsibility of this position.But yeah. Yes. We've got a
couple of historic photos upthere, and I tend to be the one
operating a chainsaw.
Abigail (01:12):
Gotta keep up with the trends.
Phil (01:13):
That's right. That's right.
Amy (01:14):
That's awesome. Well, we are really glad that you're
here, Phil, and we're reallyexcited about kind of a, I don't
know, different angle topic. Ofcourse, our listeners know we
are focusing in on water forthis season of our everyday
environment series, and, we'regonna look take a look at where
(01:38):
history and our water resourceskind of interact together.
Right? So I guess to start usoff, Phil, just tell us give us
some background informationbefore we dive into this history
and natural resource, you know,I guess, intersection.
Just tell us what you do at atUrban Rivers.
Phil (01:59):
Yeah. So, in Urban Rivers, we are really all about, taking
some of these underutilized orabandoned spaces along urban
waterways and kind of turningthem into something that is much
more usable for wildlife andpeople. It's an important
(02:21):
connection because I think in alot of times, you know,
resources tend to go into, youknow, national parks and, like,
big wildlife refuges and thingslike that, and that's that's
very important, and we're thebulk of the money that should go
truly, when we have such finiteresources to protect places and
(02:41):
such finite time in which toprotect them. But the urban
environment, I think, has gottenreally, you know, the short end
of the stick here and that,there's been a lot of
disinvestment. This is somethingthat goes back and you feel it
throughout history and you kindof see it in the ways that these
(03:02):
cities get designed and carvedup and things like this.
And it's just an importantposition because this is where a
lot of people live and a lot ofpeople in these areas, don't get
a whole lot of access to natureand opportunities to be in truly
wild spaces. And even when it's,an area where it's got a park or
(03:23):
something like that, it's allturf grass and maybe like an
ornamental maple or somethinglike that or oriented towards
different people's needs, whichis understandable. It's a big
metropolis, but, you know, youhave to take these opportunities
where you can, and the waterwaysend up being a perfect, perfect
(03:43):
example of something that youcan really turn into a very
vibrant and well connectedspace. And that that's important
for wildlife, for already movingalong this ecological corridor
that, you know, even all theindustry and all the buildings
and all the gray infrastructurewe built up and along any river
system, you'll still find treesand plants trying to find a way
(04:05):
and you're mind things scurryingalong broken down seawalls and,
you know, with our organizationand our flagship project, the
Wild Mile, that's kind of thebiggest thing that we've really
been focusing on is taking, thisarea that wildlife clearly
desperately wants to be.
(04:26):
And instead of just having themthere by accident, making a
deliberate space for wildlifeand then also creating with a
great amount of intention,opportunity for people to be
able to experience that for freeand accessible to everyone.
Because those are the powers ofurban environments, and I don't
(04:47):
see a way as a as a humansociety, we get through kind of
all these energy needs andclimate change issues without
living closer together andliving together more
efficiently. So, it's a small,small project in a very large
field of great needs. And, youknow, it's important for us to
(05:08):
just play whatever part we canand and do our little bit and
hopefully inspire more people towant to go and spend more money
and resources and time andconserving this place and other
places because, hopefully, it'llmean more to them at the end of
everything.
Abigail (05:23):
Could you talk a little bit more about, like, what is
the wild mile? Because it issuch, like, a a novel project, I
feel like, that people mightwanna hear, you know, like, what
is that? What does it do? Whatdoes it mean to have this space
for wildlife and for humans?What does that look like?
Phil (05:38):
Yeah. So the wild mile I mean, we've been at this for
quite a few years now. Truly alabor of love and grassroots
effort, but built on a lot ofother hard people's work and a
long history of, you know, thisis just something that the city
was ready for. The Goose IslandCanal, which is an artificial
(05:59):
canal, makes Goose Island anisland. It's in the north branch
of the Chicago River, dug by thefirst mayor of Chicago.
Very industrially centered area,adjacent to the infamous Cabrini
Green Housing Complex, whichwere providing a lot of the
workers for the peoples in thesefactories on Goose Island and
(06:19):
things like this. But it goesback, you know, a century or
more of just like grain shippingand timber and all this really,
like, old industry that madeChicago what it is. This canal
got dug to, I don't know, like,18 feet deep. And where it is
now, it's only, like, 5 or 6feet deep, maybe 8 feet its
deepest point. It's been reallyfilled in.
(06:42):
All the industries have movedout. It's an obsolete canal. The
few barge users of huge largerships that are going up the
North Branch are going aroundthe west side of the island
rather than using this. So itended up being great
opportunity. And I think thecity had kind of interest and
started to do things.
There were a couple other groupspoking around, but ultimately, a
(07:04):
couple of the cofounders andjust a group of people started
trying to push for this thing,which is a vision of using this
space as a park space, as anopen space that was truly
natural and wild because there'ssomething about being on the
Chicago River in particular. Youknow, you're 6 feet, 8 feet, 10
feet down from the surface. Andit's just it feels and it sounds
(07:27):
like a different world downthere. And then you see a great
blue heron and then you see akingfisher and then you see a
beaver swimming around andmuskrats, and you kind of it
hits you all of a sudden that,oh, there's a lot of cool stuff
going on, and people don'treally get to realize it. So
Abigail (07:43):
All while driving by, Kedzi or something like Yeah.
Phil (07:48):
You're driving past what is gonna be the new casino and,
you know, you're driving pastthe mega development and this
old rail yard is now gonna bethese big new condos and all
this other stuff. Low andbehold, you know, right under
your feet, there's a massivesnapping turtle that would take
the world by storm. You know? Sothe wild mile is, yeah, just
(08:08):
taking this underutilized canaland really trying to fit what we
can into the space that we'vegot. And so, Chicago River level
is controlled very tightly.
It fluctuates, you know,anywhere drops maybe a foot when
they expect rain or snow melt,and then they let it fill back
up. And when they're trying tomove water through the area, it
(08:29):
can get, like, 6 or 8 feethigher and, you know,
significant flashes in somepoints. And especially, again,
climate change, storms morefrequent and more violent.
Anything that you do has to beable to handle these. Also have
a need for the center of theriver to be accessible by
emergency boats or things likethat.
So the stuff that we coulddesign in there had to fit
(08:52):
within these certain parameters.We settled on the most effective
solution that we could get donequickest, which would be
floating, artificial wetlands,which are just basically
floating structures where theroots of the plants are growing
hydroponically out of the riverwater, and you get this kind of
easy habitat pieces where you'rejust adding on bits of native
(09:14):
plants here and there, and theneverything you would expect to
come from nice native diverseplant communities. You start to
get a little bit in here. Rootsystems are dangling underneath.
That's a lot of structure forfish and parafytin to grow and
everything to hide behind andlay eggs on and all that good
stuff.
(09:34):
You have some pollution removal,based on the plant growth and
other kind of microbialactivity. You get a little
diversification of the flow ofthe river. You get a little
nooks and crannies here andthere. It's just really easy
pieces of habitat to add intothis big empty box that is the,
you know, the old canal. So, andthen also taking that and adding
(09:57):
a floating walkway alongsidethese floating wetlands so that
not only do these things exist,but people get to get right up
close to them.
You get to see the monarch onthe milkweed. You get to see the
muskrat stealing our plants andrunning back to store them in
the fridge on the other side ofthe river. You you get to see
all these things up close thatyou don't normally get to.
(10:19):
There's a lot of other coolplaces in Chicago that are
really do nature within an urbanenvironment very well, but this
is very much a hybrid thingwhere there was just nothing
there before. You're not gonnabe able to break down the
seawall.
You're not gonna be able to doall this work. You'd like to be
able to do in a riverrestoration, but you can create
these really unique elementsthat also allow people a really
(10:41):
unique opportunity within thecity to just walk right up and
see something really cool onyour lunch break.
Abigail (10:47):
Awesome. We took the Cook County Master Naturalists
to go see this site. We wentkayaking. We got to be in the
Chicago River. It is a reallywonderful site.
I definitely encourage all ofour listeners to check it out if
you're ever kind of doing alittle trip to the city or
anything. It's it's so cool.It's free. It's publicly
accessible. I wanted to makesure that project had to be able
to be talked about because it'sit's how I know you, Phil Yes.
(11:09):
Yes. As well. What we came hereto talk about today is the
history of the Chicago River,and why the heck would we would
talk about the Chicago River inthe first place? It's just one
river in Illinois, not even thebiggest river in Illinois,
right, not even the biggest bodyof water in Illinois. And so why
are we featuring this site?
(11:29):
And so to help us set the stage,I guess, where is the Chicago
River, and what are the otherbodies of water surrounding it
that are part of the story ofthis river?
Phil (11:39):
Yes. And this is one of the most fascinating histories
of just, like, a really specifictime and and even kind of just
exists in this really specifictime of geological history where
it's like everything is set upfor this specific spot on the
planet to be really, reallyinteresting. And, yeah, the size
(12:02):
of the river doesn't matter.It's about the flow. It's about
the the, you know, under theundulations, and it's about the
natural aesthetic.
Yes. The the Chicago Riversystem is super interesting. So,
basically, the formation of theGreat Lakes, the Great Lakes
themselves are not really thatold of systems. You know, 20,000
or 25,000 years old, that's ablink of an eye kinda
(12:26):
geologically. So Chicago sits atthe point in which there's a big
melting of some of theseglaciers, and there's a big dam
that busts open an ice dam thatends up creating, like, the
Moraine Hills State Parkdownstate a little bit.
It's just this point at whichthis huge dam broke and there's
(12:49):
this gigantic deluge of waterand this big washout and slow
draining to the point whereChicago would eventually become
land. In Chicago or just south,there's this little community
called Blue Island named suchbecause it was literally an
island at one point. And allthese kind of cities that have
names like Palos Heights andRidgeview and things like that
(13:12):
used to be overlooking kind ofthis sort of formally submerged,
but that dam breaks, all thatwater drains out. And what you
left
Abigail (13:20):
To clarify, Phil, by dam, you mean geologic dam.
Right? Like, it's not like thiswe're talking way before Right.
Human Chicago establishment.
Phil (13:28):
It's a great point. It's an ice dam. It's, like,
basically formed, oh, justbecause the interior of the big
iceberg is melting, and itcreates, like, this little bowl
where there's a bunch ofmeltwater that's pooling up, and
that is all breaking. That icedam is breaking at once. So,
yeah, we're talking about anenormous, enormous forces that
(13:49):
are shaping the better part ofthe state here.
That drainage leaves us with avery low lying area upon which
Chicago sits. But this is also,like, critically important.
Because this just happened,there's now a continental
connection point between theGreat Lakes and the Mississippi
(14:10):
River. So this is enormousconnection point. And because
human societies throughouthistory have found in themselves
on rivers, it really shouldn'tbe anybody's surprise that
there's just tons of interest insettling along these rivers
where you're talking aboutNative American communities or
more recently colonialists.
(14:31):
And this is it ends up justbeing such a unique point in the
continent because you do havethese unique factors that allow
an relatively unimpeded trafficbetween the Great Lakes and the
Mississippi and the wider riverways. And so it just ends up
being such an important part.But Chicago being so low lying
(14:53):
and still having to drain reallymeans that we've got a couple of
interesting sort of relics. Andon the western edge of Chicago
is the Des Plaines River. Sothat runs from north into
Wisconsin.
Further west, there's the FoxRiver. But the displinings is
really the thing that kind ofconnects us here. It heads down
south, then southwestward. TheChicago River has generally in
(15:20):
the past had two points. They'vehad north branch and a south
branch, which in those dayswould connect into the main
branch, which would then flowout into Lake Michigan.
That south branch was theimportant connector point
because you could come into themain branch off of the lake. You
can go down the south branch,and there was this 3 mile long
(15:44):
muddy lake and then PortageCreek that would then connect
you to the Des Plaines. And soafter making the entire voyage
across Lake Michigan andtraveling all the way down the
South Branch, you only had todrag your canoe across 3 miles
of a muddy lake covered inleeches and things like that to
then get on a creek to then haveaccess to the rest of the river
(16:06):
system. So nice and convenientfor a lot of people. You can
imagine being a young Potawatomilad trying to make that journey
to, you know, get from onevillage to another, and it's
really interesting, but that waswhat settled for convenience
back in those days.
Abigail (16:24):
And there's a park there now, like, kind of,
documenting that history. Like,Portage Park is a space that
has, I think, like, a monumentor of some kind, like, art there
that showcases, like, this was ahistoric space in which, like,
commerce occurred to totransport between the two
(16:46):
systems.
Phil (16:47):
Yes. Yeah. And that's, you know, the state at which when it
was under the when the Councilof Three Fires are there, when
it's the when it's a very NativeAmerican kinda controlled area,
It's very communally based, andit's very gathering space based.
And it's it's meant to be thispoint at which all these
different cultures from acrossthe Great Lakes and across the
(17:09):
region come together to meet intrade and things like that. And
in many ways, even after, youknow, colonialism really occurs,
it's still like that to a greatdegree.
And now the the tenor in whichthe river systems were treated
or what changed in the greatestsense where native communities
(17:31):
would tend to, you know, treatthe river the river with a
little more reverence. I kindof, the some folks we had talked
to before treated it. I calledthem, like, you know, taking
care of your brother orsomething like that, feeling
like it was a familialconnection relationship with
these river systems to a pointwhere we get into 18 fifties
(17:53):
United States and, rivers aremuch more about extraction of
resources, and rivers are muchmore about being controlled and
damned and channelized andthings like this because the
things that make rivers veryvibrant places with lots of
habitat and lots of different,you know, plant and animal
species hanging around are thevery things that make it
(18:15):
difficult for shipping andnavigation. So obviously, if
you're trying to set up anindustry, it does not help you
to have to drag something acrossthe 3 mile muddy lake. So, hey,
let's get rid of the lake andlet's straighten things out, and
it gets to this point in Chicagowhere that original system,
that, you know, South Branch toLake to Portage Creek system
(18:40):
eventually gets replaced by theI and M Canal, which is done,
you know, maybe 1850s orsomething like that.
You start to get that connectionpoint and that ends up, changing
the landscape a good bit. TheWest Fork of the South branch
would still exist even as theShip and Sanitary Canal, which
(19:01):
was built to replace theIllinois and Michigan Canal,
that gets built. So at one time,you have 3 different things
running in parallel. At onetime, you have the Illinois
Michigan Canal, you have theShip and Sanitary Canal, and you
have the West Fork of the Southbranch all running alongside
each other in the samedirection. Each one making the
last one obsolete from a kind ofshipping and commerce
(19:24):
standpoint.
And eventually, the whole thingis made obsolete by the
connection on the Calumet Riverdown south. And so a different,
wider, larger river with easierconnectivity to the rest of the,
Mississippi waterway is dug, andthat's completed by, like, 1930.
So we spent all this timedigging 2 canals along the one
(19:48):
branch for only to be madeobsolete by a different canal a
little bit to the south. Andthen for those things to be made
obsolete by rail and highwaysand planes and things like that.
So we talk about these enormousinfrastructure and all these
scars that we put on thislandscape and all this kind of
destruction of habitat andremoving of the things that make
(20:11):
rivers so vibrant.
And we got maybe a 100 years ofusage out of it. You know? So
this is just a great example ofthe real shortsightedness on,
you know, human part where wehave all this in this
engineering going into somethingthat just is you know, it put us
on the map and it was veryimportant at the time, but it
(20:33):
also set us on a path for thatbeing the case for the next you
know, we have to now spend allthese time and resources to fix
these issues rather than justjust letting them be and kind of
letting them be as they were. Soit's this inherent tension,
especially in cities, where thewaterways, you want them to be
(20:54):
what they should be, but the thethe city is constricting them
and it's confining them and it'sforcing them into this box and
it's making them such that theycan't do the things that are be
as part of the natural world asthey should be. So, yeah, it's
an interesting point, and theserivers have been so altered.
And the thing that peoplegenerally know about, is the
(21:16):
reversal of the river. And soapart for it being for shipping
and commerce, also an importantwater source for Chicago for a
while, too many people weregetting cholera, which is a
waterborne, pathogen. Basically,too many people are pooping in
one area. You're poisoning yourwater source and spreading this,
even further. So the firstresponse of Chicago is to is to
(21:40):
literally dig the Ship andSanitary Canal named such
because you're trying to kind offix the You they dug it all out,
and then they broke the dam onthe south branch, that then
caused the water to drop veryrapidly such that the level of
the river for that time in themain branch in the south branch
(22:02):
was lower than the lake.
And so they have the lock anddam system at Navy Pier in
downtown Chicago. So by keepingthe lake higher than the river
is how they ended up reversingthe river and sending all of
the, detritus of humancivilization downstream.
Abigail (22:20):
Wait. Hold on. So the the lake was higher than the
river, or the river was higherthan the lake?
Phil (22:28):
Yes. The river generally flowing downstream was higher
than the lake, and so the northand south branch would meet at
the main branch, which wouldthen empty out into the lake
just all based on gravity,which, again, very low and flat.
So it's already quite sluggishand not moving a whole lot. But
(22:48):
in this case, in order toreverse it, they dug backwards,
knocked the dam down. All thewater from the river rushed down
there, lowering the level of theriver beneath that of the lake,
and so they could always keep itcoming off of the lake from then
on.
Abigail (23:04):
So for Lake Michigan to now be the kind of source of the
Chicago River, essentially.
Phil (23:10):
Yeah. Yeah.
Amy (23:11):
I guess historical circumstances, you've talked
about the transportation, thecommerce, and then you've talked
about public health. Were thereany other circumstances going on
at that same time for thisdecision to reverse the flow?
Phil (23:30):
Yeah. Well and so and the reversal didn't even really take
care of what they were hopingto. So the other part of this is
that in order the first thingand the the I guess it goes even
further back from that. SoChicago, very low lying. They
built it originally all out ofwood, kind of in the center
(23:53):
little plug of the city.
And when you're that low andthat the river system is so
sluggish, it was like even usingthe river as a sewage system,
which is what a lot of old veryold cities did, there just
wasn't enough gravity to movethe water away quickly. So the
first step that Chicago ever didis built it literally jack the
(24:15):
entire downtown up on stilts.
Abigail (24:19):
Human solutions are sometimes so funny to me. Like,
when you think about, like, whenyou're someone who is always
thinking about, like, what's thenature inspired solution here,
and then you kind of, like, Idon't I'm not I'm not in the
engineering realm as muchsometimes, but I just, like,
giggle sometimes when the answeris, like, let's just lift up an
entire the city.
Phil (24:38):
Not only that. There are stories of moving these wooden
houses, these wooden buildingsthat, like, all the downtown
shops were on and, like,literally rolling them to the
other side and rolling them outof the way to the point where
they'd be, like, people would bein them using them as they're
getting moved to the other sideof the river only for them to
(25:02):
get burnt down in the GreatChicago.
Amy (25:04):
Fire. Oh.
Abigail (25:05):
So Wait. So the the the fire is a good point. As far as,
like, historical, like, justanchoring goes, where are we
talking about as terms of, like,reversal of the Chicago River
and then the fire? Like, whichone was first and so that way
everyone kinda has, like
Phil (25:20):
Oh, the fire is gonna have happened first. The first thing
would have been jacking the cityup on stilts. And then the
Abigail (25:30):
as one does
Phil (25:31):
As one does as one does. The fire would have happened. A
lot of the fire debris actuallygot pushed into the lake and
created a good amount of lakefrontage, which is, I guess,
making lemons, yeah, lemonade.So, yes, the great fire happens,
and then the reversal of theriver happens. In between the
reversal in the river and thefire, they have dug them 2 miles
(25:55):
out into Lake Michigan to buildthe water intake cribs.
So their first solution was justhave the water intake be far
enough from the city such thatthe pollution from the river
that was still emptying into thelake wouldn't reach the water
intakes. So their first solutionwas we'll dig, you know, 100
(26:18):
feet underground, 2 miles out tobuild these massive water
intakes, and that's, like,that's the first bid. And then
the second bid
Abigail (26:26):
So that'll that'll our that'll be our our hopefully
clean water source. Yeah. Right?But, you know, water doesn't
care about political boundariesor if they say that. So
Phil (26:36):
The pollution was too mighty. So, you know, they the
solution didn't even work andsay, yes, then the reversal of
the river and the combination ofthose two things, sets the city
up for where it's going to be.And by the time , the 1930s is
when the Calumet is fully hookedup and the Illinois waterway
(26:56):
becomes the thing it is today.So by about the thirties, even
into the fifties, the West Forkof the South Branch in the I and
M Canal is still getting filledin in bits because they were
obsolete and because they werejust like stinky little sewers
as well as the saw the east forkof the south branch of little
(27:19):
bits that are filled in. So, youknow, once you probably get to
about 1960, the whole system isprobably configured as you would
see it today.
Abigail (27:29):
Okay. So you're saying it was mainly was the public
health concern. Right? It wasour we were doing what we
shouldn't have done, drinkingthe water that we were not
supposed to drink, or pollutingour own waters. So we did it
work?
Like, did are we I mean, I guessit's like what it looks like
today, but were there othermeasures that had to be taken
(27:51):
after? Like, were we seeing asuccessful now, at least for the
city of Chicago, right, on water
Phil (27:58):
So it it worked it worked phenomenally from a public
health from a Chicago's publichealth standpoint. All the stuff
that got flushed down was justgetting pushed downriver. And so
some of the first and this isactually natural history survey
and, you know, U of I. Some ofthe first surveys that are done
(28:18):
out in the Illinois River our,Forbs.
And at some point, I believe in,like, the 1910s or so, it may be
around World War I ish, they'redescribing as 90% of the biomass
that they're pulling out of thatriver as being carp or goldfish.
So there just isn't stuff alivebecause in certain stretches, it
(28:42):
is just the entirety of thecontinent's meatpacking industry
being concentrated in this onearea and all this incredible
pollution being dumped in andit's like that. You know, that's
what they're sending south. Butfor a long way southwards,
you're getting all these kind ofhorrible effects. And then also
throw on top of that the factthat you're converting a massive
(29:04):
prairie state into anagricultural industrial
powerhouse.
So all of these areas thatshould be providing habitat and
filtration of water and are nowgetting fertilizer and
pesticides dumped on them. So itwork in a very limited sense.
And I think if you're looking atkind of the long scale or
(29:24):
environmental, aspects ofthings, it obviously has not
worked. And we're at this pointnow where we've gotta put a lot
of work into fixing thesethings.
Abigail (29:34):
So tell me a little bit more though about those impacts
downstate, like, what we wereseeing less biodiversity of fish
species, any other, what otherimpacts were we seeing due to
the reversal of the river?
Phil (29:48):
Yeah. And it's not even necessarily the reversal of the
river. You know? I think ingeneral, the concept of, you had
enough volume of water afterabout 7 river miles to consider
a lot of things have, you know,the the point sources of
pollution are not necessarily asprominent the further down river
(30:10):
you go. So even though
St. Louis was complaining aboutall this stuff getting sent down
to them, it really was notChicago stuff ending up in St.
Louis necessarily. It's theentirety of the state going from
one point to another and all ofthat stuff also during the end
that would contribute to theseissues. So, yeah, very locally
(30:32):
in Chicago. I mean and it'struly just everything, but it
things on a wider landscapescale too.
You know, like, bald eagles nowbeing around here, and we we can
point to the specific chemicalthat was doing that. You know?
There's there's also just anincredible you know, we think of
freshwater mussels as beingparticularly sensitive to their
(30:55):
environment. And in the Chicagoregion, throughout the most of
the city now, you probably canonly find one native mussel
species, the giant floater,maybe some white heel splitters.
But in general, all these thingsthat you would expect, the
macroinvertebrates, and we dosampling for these all the time.
In areas where there's just somuch organic material and all
(31:16):
this kinda nasty, fluffypollution laden stuff at the
bottom, those environments favorworms and leeches and things
like that that are breaking downorganic material
disproportionately. So it it'san effect from the bottom up.
It's like every bit of it, notto mention the fact that, when
you get big pulses of algae,just like when you end up with
(31:39):
these dead zones at the mouthsof all these rivers and oceans,
it happens in rivers themselvesand in lakes and things like
that. Just the complete loss ofoxygen in areas that even if you
have pockets of robustecosystem, if they're getting
shocked with 0 oxygen eventspretty regularly, You're just
gonna see this, and this istruly what's happened in a lot
(32:01):
of these places, just a topplingof ecosystems and survival of
things that are extremists in alot of different ways. And so,
yeah, it's just it's somethingthat you'd be able to feel no
matter what part of these riversystems you're going into more
acutely or less acutely.
But in Chicago, it's justthere's no habitat and all this
(32:22):
legacy pollution. It is prettyimpressive that things have
found their way, but even so,the water infrastructure
resource resources that the cityand the state federal government
have put in to start cleaning upthis section have had huge
impacts. And we've seen the fishpopulation rebound, and we've
(32:44):
seen these diversity ofdifferent types of organisms and
finding things that you wouldn'thave expect to find necessarily.
And so there's there's reasonfor optimism, but you can't, you
know, you go back a 100 yearsand things look pretty pretty
bleak. You know, it's it's hardto see a way out of that.
And some of it has just beentime. Some of it has been time
(33:06):
and clean air and clean wateract made a big difference in the
seventies. And then, you get theunderground reservoir project,
which starts getting dug in thenineties, which is basically
just all these they're digging abunch of tunnels to connect the
stormwater infrastructure tothese big old limestone quarries
(33:26):
that collectively are able tohold trillions of gallons of
stormwater so that when stormsdo come through, our sewage
system is not overwhelmed, andwe don't have to dump raw
sewage, untreated sewage intothe river, which is, again, one
of those pollutants where it's ahuge shock to an ecosystem. And
(33:48):
if you don't have a very healthyand robust ecosystem, things can
get toppled and get out of handpretty quickly. So just yeah.
Another one of those pieceswhere we we've got a lot of
legacy pollution, but there'sstill stuff that happens today.
Salt, pulses of salt will endup. You know? This is just kinda
typical of urban streamsthroughout the country,
(34:08):
throughout the world, really,but very acute and with a very
long history in Chicago.
Abigail (34:14):
As, you know, what a a lot of you said kinda like I was
thinking about, like, what kindaconnects them all. There's all
these water is, like, theultimate kind of connector of
our landscapes. Right? Like,watersheds are even though it's
not a in a river and a stream,the water is gonna make it do a
river and stream eventually, andthen you know so it can't just
be boiled down to, like, onefactor that causes an issue.
(34:36):
There's a lot of othercomplicated systems and
structures that exist thatcause, you know, maybe sediment
pollution and erosion ornutrient pollution, which is, a
big thing that, you know,Extension works on as well.
And then, you know, pollutants,we haven't even done a lot of
research on and understand evencompletely, are things that are
all part of and then also on topof dealing with, like, old
(34:58):
systems. Right? That now that weknow more information, we know
they're bad. Right? So Yeah.
Working within those thoseknowledge and and just, like,
all the really complicatingfactors that deal that come with
water in general, which is whywe wanted to talk about it this
whole season. Right? We werelike, we can't just do 1 episode
in water. We're gonna do 12. So
Amy (35:18):
Yeah. We when you were talking about earlier, Phil, too
of, like, these solutions thatthey had back in the day, it
just made me think of, like,the, well, I guess, I wouldn't
say permanence, but, you know,when we're making decisions
today or we're, creatingprograms or initiatives or
whatever, like, we have to thinklonger than just that, like, you
(35:39):
know, what's gonna happentomorrow, the next 100 years,
you know, just trying to take alot of that into consideration.
But are there you talked about afew, I think, but are there any
current projects or initiativesthat are going on? I mean,
obviously, your program, youknow, that are going on in in
(36:00):
the Chicago River that you wannahighlight.
Phil (36:03):
Yeah. I mean, that's the Chicago River in particular, and
is is our uniqueness as a city.You know, other places have
other cities have it's all kindof the same challenges, but they
each have such unique contexts.And the city in the way in which
(36:23):
Chicago finds itself is verycontrolled. What's going to
happen over the next 10 or 15years is gonna be very
controlled by how developmentsalong the river are done.
Our hope is that the Wild Mileand some of these other
projects, we have floatingislands up at River Park, more
in the north branch where theNorth Shore Channel and the
(36:46):
actual north branch meet. We'vegot floating islands down at
Bubbly Creek on the South Branchin partnership with Shedd
Aquarium and a couple othergroups. We're hoping that these
things are footholds of naturein areas that are gonna get
redeveloped pretty rapidly. Andif they're done in a wrong way,
(37:08):
are just gonna lock us intoanother 100 years of gray
infrastructure. If they're donethe right way, you have these
incredible opportunities.
And I I think the biggest thingfor us is, like, when we talk
about the historical context ofthese things, really impressing
upon people. Like, look. Thesethese guys spent this much time
(37:28):
and this much money to mess upthe river. Why are we not even
spending a fraction of that tokind of make it better?
Really trying to convince thesedevelopers who are ultimately
the ones that control whathappens on their stretches of
the river, trying to convincethem that the better path
forward is worth the investment.And I think there's a lot of
(37:50):
great examples throughout thecity from a lot of different
groups who are doing things on alot of different scales, and
everything kind of unified alittle bit by the city of
Chicago's River Governance TaskForce, which we're a part of,
which a lot of other groups area part of. There are positive
things for sure. But the thefact that it is in private
(38:13):
development hands just it justmeans that there's a great
opportunity that we really couldmiss, and it'll be for the
dumbest reason of all. We justdidn't have a little bit of
money at the time to kind of putit into things.
So there are great examples.Like, I'm thinking specifically
of, like, Big Marsh Park down inthe on the Calumet River, and it
(38:36):
is like it's attached to theIllinois International Port
District. Like, there's a lot ofshipping that goes on still
throughout there, but there'sthis kind of side channel, this
side area where it's just off ofthe river just enough, but it's
a huge area for a lot of reallyunique habitat. They've done a
lot of work to kinda remediatethose areas. And that is, I
(38:59):
think, a great example of theattempt at doing this the right
way where you're not just makingsomething for this industrial
commercial purpose, but you'realso giving credence to public
access and using it as in seeingas more of a natural resource
rather than a thing to exploit.
In Chicago River in particular,you know, Bubbly Creek has been
(39:22):
really a focal point for a lotof groups. There's a need for
trail connectivity there, sothere's a whole lot of
neighborhoods on the on thesouthwest side of the city that
are not gonna get theirconnection to the river frontage
if there isn't this kind ofwider, trail network developed.
You know, all the affluent areasof the city that shed their
(39:44):
industrial tenants and aregetting replaced by condos and
whatnot are gonna get this niceriver walk that's connected all
the way downtown, and there's arisk of the same communities
they've been disinvested in forall this time or yet another
thing that they don't get accessto. So there's some there's some
things down there that youreally want to a lot of the
(40:05):
neighborhood groups are ralliedaround. A lot of the
environmental justicecommunities are rallied around.
Thinking about the collateralchannel further down, it's more
on the Ship and Sanitary Canal.But in that process of building
the different canals, thischannel was dug to connect the
(40:25):
Ship and Sanitary Canal to thewest fork of the south branch
because there was a guy whobuilt a bridge too low such that
people couldn't get across. Andso now there's this weird random
former connection point that nowjust dead ends because they fill
them the
Abigail (40:42):
I'm sensing a theme, like trial and error on a
massive scale.
Phil (40:47):
A lot less thought that went into this than you would
think they would be. And thenthere's all these, like so
there's great opportunities downthere because these barge slips
and these former connectionpoints actually bypass all this
continued industrial area whereyou still have industrial
tenants and you still have a lotof, you know, you know, job
creating industry. You get theselittle fingers that poke past
(41:12):
those industrial zones and comeright up to the neighborhoods.
So there's opportunities there.And again, it's one of those
things where if a new industrialtenant comes in and they wanna
put barge access and that'sgonna inherently block out
people's access, That'ssomething that we're hoping to
push back against.
And so, yeah, Wild Mile is justone example. The Park District
(41:33):
has a lot of great sites thathave been made, stronger over
the years. The city owns acouple of lots here and there.
People's Gas had 11 sites alongthe river where they would turn,
basically fossil fuel into lampoil. So they had big piles of
(41:54):
coal sitting right on the river.coal or whatever. They would
process it, and then they havethis tar sewer that would dump
right out into the riverunderneath that. So they have
these leavened places where,they have to do this remediation
work both on land and in theriver. One place that is the
exception is actually BubblyCreek where the EPA said that
(42:16):
there was so much new urbanpollution that had come up and
stacked up on top of theirpollution that they weren't
liable for it anymore becausethere was no way it was gonna
escape all the new layers ofpollution that had built up over
time. So it's fun.
Abigail (42:30):
Oh, you made it your problem now. That's what they
Yeah. I'm sensing a a themeamong a lot of these projects,
Phil, though, is, like, it's alot of them are, like, community
driven, community collaborativeprojects. Right? It's not just
somebody coming in and saying,we need to clean this up.
We need to do something aboutthis. Let's fix it. and I'm
(42:52):
thinking of Big Marsh inparticular, a site that's I've
been to several times, and we'vealso taken Master Naturalists
there that really is aboutincorporating the needs of the
community, the needs of thesite, the needs of the, the the
environment there as well. Andthe like, so this kind of
confluence of, like, human andenvironmental need working
(43:14):
together while also recognizingand incorporating the history of
that landscape as well. And Ithink that really creates a
really successful equation forcombo or whatever for for being
able to actually do somethingabout remediation of of the
river and things like that.
Phil (43:33):
Yeah. We'll make it part of the process too. I mean, like
Yeah. And all those pieces downin the if community were not
involved in the process, then,you know, things would just oh,
isn't that a nice little parkthere? If they're involved in
the process, then they're gonnastart, well, why can't why is it
so hard for me to get overthere?
And that's true of Big Marsh,especially. It's this great
(43:53):
resource, and you've gotta walkacross train tracks and major
roads and highways. And so eventhe people that are supposed to
be benefiting from this can'tget there without a car. It's
the kind of thing that wouldengender more political
pressure. You know, when youhave a resource to go to that
people wanna get to, there'smore of a reason to keep pushing
(44:16):
for it versus I mean, throughoutthe river, that's one of the
biggest things that anybodycould say.
Why invest in the river? A lotof oh, it's a dirty, stinky,
whatever body riddled place.Like, all the just silliness you
hear in these different contextfrom people. And it's like, no.
Actually, we can show you howimproved this is and how the the
(44:40):
impact that resources andcommunity effort has made on the
improvement of the health ofthis river.
We actually don't even have thatmuch further to go. You know, we
know what to do. This isn't a ..you can't make the argument that
we went through all this troubleto reverse the river and dig all
these channels, and all of asudden, we can't do anything
anymore. Mhmm. This is yeah.
(45:02):
It's a community driven process,I think, because of all time,
the communities have been theones most left out from the
river in the first place. So itmakes sense that when we're kind
of refocusing who should be inthe driver's seat of these
assets, it really should fall inthese groups. And they've got a
lot of their stuff to work ontoo. You know? They've they've
(45:23):
got a lot of different,priorities in their
neighborhoods and theirconstituencies, but, hopefully,
projects like ours can mainmaintain focus and keep momentum
in building these things so thatwe don't get locked out in these
communities that are, been keptaway or not kept away anymore.
Amy (45:44):
Mhmm. Yeah. That's really amazing. You guys, I mean, just
hearing from you and talking toyou today, Phil, it's it's just
very inspiring and, you know,just to know that that people
are paying attention to that andyou're involving and you're
being very strategic aboutinvolving community. So it's,
yeah, it's really inspiring.
(46:05):
So thank you. We we reallyappreciate you being here with
us and sharing your knowledgeon, this history of kind of our
water resources, which reallyruns down towards me. Right? It
runs down this downstate. So wewe really appreciate you being
here.
(46:26):
Before we wrap up real quick, wewant to, finish today's episode
with an everyday observation,and this is where we highlight
the normal everyday things wesee in the environment, that
actually happens to be reallyinteresting. So, Abigail, I'll
throw it to you first just togive out your everyday
observation.
Abigail (46:46):
Yeah. So mine is, like, very typical of the time of
year. I've been made aware that,my squirrel content is very
popular, apparently. And so,which has brought me back to
just paying attention to thesquirrels again, and they just
get so rotund this time of year.Yeah.
And I just love it. Andactually, I saw one the other
(47:07):
day on our sidewalk, and Ithought it was like a a kitten,
like a cat. And, like, that'show big the squirrels in my
neighborhood are. And so, andthey're gray squirrels. They
should not be that big.
And so so, yeah, I'm just kindof noticing all the animals
preparing for winter,particularly the very, very
round squirrels in myneighborhood.
Amy (47:27):
Yeah. They and they are busy. They are busy. Yes. Phil,
what about you?
Phil (47:32):
You gotta you gotta beef yourself up enough to be able to
off the rats that are the sizethat they are on
Abigail (47:39):
Fair. Fair.
Phil (47:42):
I'm a birder. I'm a very casual bird person. I would not
consider myself a birder, but Ido I can tell the cues when
we're with a birder, when theyget super excited about
something, I know that I shouldbe excited about the thing too.
So we were going around with 1of our graduate researchers.
(48:06):
They were looking for, beaversigns all along the river, which
is a really fun day, setting upcamera traps and things like
that.
And we spotted along the courseof the river a great horned owl,
which, the birder on the boatwas extraordinarily excited
about. And so I took that tomean that's a very good sign.
(48:30):
And, yeah, it's just alwaysinteresting to spot an owl
because you just sort of feellike you're catching them just
getting out of the shower.they're like, don't look at me!
What are you doing here? Stopit. Go away.
And it was just, such a gorgeousbig bird, and I've never seen
one before. And apparently, it'sa lifer for some of these
(48:52):
birders to be able to see it.So, and there was just a I mean,
truly a random Wednesday morningjust boating down the river, and
that's the kinda stuff you canfind. And that's, you know, a
couple years ago, we had seen abald eagle get chased off by
some crows in our turning basinjust right north of us. And so
all kinds of cool stuff.
And I just go and I'm tellingyou, if you got a half hour to
(49:16):
kill, go to any spot along theriver with some binoculars, and
you're gonna see some crazystuff.
Amy (49:21):
Yeah. I love that. Well, I have been my everyday
observation, I'm looking at I'mlooking at my native garden, my
native plant garden in my yardat this time of year, and I have
indigo, baptisia. I have indigoin my yard and, you know, they
have those seed pods that areblack and big and bulky. Well
(49:44):
and I noticed them and remindedme of another time we were out
for an educational event in aprairie north of here, and I had
an entomologist with us.
And I kept open up opening upthese seed pods of the indigo
plant, and I'm like, theselittle bugs keep coming out. Oh,
that's so crazy. Little bugs arecoming out. And I was like, you
(50:05):
know, putting them on my hand,and I then I went up to her and
I was like, what? Like, I feelevery single time I open one,
there's these same bugs thatcome out.
They're the same ones. And she'slike, they're specific baptisia
seed pod weevils. And I justdidn't know. I didn't know that.
I thought that was just crazythat they're so specialized to
(50:27):
that one plant and only on its,you know, seed pod. and so I
just thought that was, like, thecoolest thing. It's they're not
the greatest for the plant,obviously.
Abigail (50:40):
Everyone's got a place. it's ecology.
Amy (50:43):
Exactly. It is. Their food for other things, but then for
the plant, they're, you know,not so great, and they can't get
to all the seed pods. Right? Butbut I just thought that was
really interesting. So maybelook out for those, you know,
Baptisia seed pod weevils whenyou're out there.
Abigail (51:01):
I think it's wild how, like, common they are of all
Baptisia though because, like,it's such a if it sounds like
it's such a specialist of aspecies, so we'll have to do,
like, a little more research onthis this insect because I wanna
know more, because it's not likebaptisia is, like, a popular
yard plant. Right. You know?Right.
(51:24):
So and maybe we'll have to callErin in for this because she
might know. But I think, like, Ijust I need to know more about
this because I knew I also knowabout the baptisia weevils, but
I was like, and I love weevilsbecause I think they're really
cool, looking insects, but Idon't I need to know more about
their ecology to, like, how dothey get around? How do they get
(51:45):
from, you know, indigo toindigo, things like that. Yeah.
I just wanna know.
I wanna know. Some inquiringminds.
Amy (51:51):
Yes. Exactly. Like you said, Phil, like, nature is
kinda happening everywhere, andwe don't know how you know, it's
down there on the river. It's,you know, wherever we are, it's
just everywhere around us, andwe don't understand it all. So I
just think that's the coolestthing.
Phil (52:09):
Good dang hibiscus beetles too. We have the same thing
happening with our hibiscusseed.
Abigail (52:14):
Yes. I got those too, and all I wanted to do was
collect my seed. And I was like,something is
munching on my seed.
Phil (52:21):
So when we have our volunteers go out, they collect
a lot of the hibiscus seed. Wehave to be very careful to tell
them, do not, if you see anyholes, don't grab the pod
because they'll bring theminside, and we add more than one
infestation of these these guyshatch and end up on our walls
and things in our office.Definitely check your seed.
Amy (52:42):
Not good. Not good. Well, cool. Well, thank you again,
Phil, for being with us today onour everyday environment
podcast. We really appreciateyou.
Go off and do the good work.Continue doing the good work
that you're doing. So thanksagain.
Phil (52:55):
Thank you. Come out to the river anytime. We'll show you
around. Plenty of places toexplore, Sigiri.
Amy (53:02):
Sounds great. Well, this has been another episode on the
Everyday Environment podcast.Check us out next week where we
talk with Kara Salazar. She isgoing to talk to us about
compute community planning andsustainable development around
water. So check back next week.
Abigail (53:23):
This podcast is a University of Illinois Extension
production, hosted and edited byAbigail Garofalo, Erin Garrett,
and Amy Lefringhouse.
Welcome to another episode of the Everyday Environment
podcast, where we explore theenvironment we see everyday. I'm
your host, Amy Lefringhouse.
Abigail (00:15):
And I'm your cohost, Abigail Garofalo.
Amy (00:18):
And today, we are here with Phil Nicodemus. He is the
research director at UrbanRivers, and I took a look at
your picture, Phil, online, yourprofile pictures on the Urban
Rivers website, and it lookedlike you had some stylish,
maybe, chainsaw chaps on. Andthen maybe in other pictures, I
(00:41):
saw you in, waders, so you mustbe all over the place. So
Abigail (00:48):
Yes. Welcome.
Phil (00:50):
Thank you. That is mostly just to try out these different
accessories of field style and,you know, you gotta look good in
any situation, and that's thefirst and foremost
responsibility of this position.But yeah. Yes. We've got a
couple of historic photos upthere, and I tend to be the one
operating a chainsaw.
Abigail (01:12):
Gotta keep up with the trends.
Phil (01:13):
That's right. That's right.
Amy (01:14):
That's awesome. Well, we are really glad that you're
here, Phil, and we're reallyexcited about kind of a, I don't
know, different angle topic. Ofcourse, our listeners know we
are focusing in on water forthis season of our everyday
environment series, and, we'regonna look take a look at where
(01:38):
history and our water resourceskind of interact together.
Right? So I guess to start usoff, Phil, just tell us give us
some background informationbefore we dive into this history
and natural resource, you know,I guess, intersection.
Just tell us what you do at atUrban Rivers.
Phil (01:59):
Yeah. So, in Urban Rivers, we are really all about, taking
some of these underutilized orabandoned spaces along urban
waterways and kind of turningthem into something that is much
more usable for wildlife andpeople. It's an important
(02:21):
connection because I think in alot of times, you know,
resources tend to go into, youknow, national parks and, like,
big wildlife refuges and thingslike that, and that's that's
very important, and we're thebulk of the money that should go
truly, when we have such finiteresources to protect places and
(02:41):
such finite time in which toprotect them. But the urban
environment, I think, has gottenreally, you know, the short end
of the stick here and that,there's been a lot of
disinvestment. This is somethingthat goes back and you feel it
throughout history and you kindof see it in the ways that these
(03:02):
cities get designed and carvedup and things like this.
And it's just an importantposition because this is where a
lot of people live and a lot ofpeople in these areas, don't get
a whole lot of access to natureand opportunities to be in truly
wild spaces. And even when it's,an area where it's got a park or
(03:23):
something like that, it's allturf grass and maybe like an
ornamental maple or somethinglike that or oriented towards
different people's needs, whichis understandable. It's a big
metropolis, but, you know, youhave to take these opportunities
where you can, and the waterwaysend up being a perfect, perfect
(03:43):
example of something that youcan really turn into a very
vibrant and well connectedspace. And that that's important
for wildlife, for already movingalong this ecological corridor
that, you know, even all theindustry and all the buildings
and all the gray infrastructurewe built up and along any river
system, you'll still find treesand plants trying to find a way
(04:05):
and you're mind things scurryingalong broken down seawalls and,
you know, with our organizationand our flagship project, the
Wild Mile, that's kind of thebiggest thing that we've really
been focusing on is taking, thisarea that wildlife clearly
desperately wants to be.
(04:26):
And instead of just having themthere by accident, making a
deliberate space for wildlifeand then also creating with a
great amount of intention,opportunity for people to be
able to experience that for freeand accessible to everyone.
Because those are the powers ofurban environments, and I don't
(04:47):
see a way as a as a humansociety, we get through kind of
all these energy needs andclimate change issues without
living closer together andliving together more
efficiently. So, it's a small,small project in a very large
field of great needs. And, youknow, it's important for us to
(05:08):
just play whatever part we canand and do our little bit and
hopefully inspire more people towant to go and spend more money
and resources and time andconserving this place and other
places because, hopefully, it'llmean more to them at the end of
everything.
Abigail (05:23):
Could you talk a little bit more about, like, what is
the wild mile? Because it issuch, like, a a novel project, I
feel like, that people mightwanna hear, you know, like, what
is that? What does it do? Whatdoes it mean to have this space
for wildlife and for humans?What does that look like?
Phil (05:38):
Yeah. So the wild mile I mean, we've been at this for
quite a few years now. Truly alabor of love and grassroots
effort, but built on a lot ofother hard people's work and a
long history of, you know, thisis just something that the city
was ready for. The Goose IslandCanal, which is an artificial
(05:59):
canal, makes Goose Island anisland. It's in the north branch
of the Chicago River, dug by thefirst mayor of Chicago.
Very industrially centered area,adjacent to the infamous Cabrini
Green Housing Complex, whichwere providing a lot of the
workers for the peoples in thesefactories on Goose Island and
(06:19):
things like this. But it goesback, you know, a century or
more of just like grain shippingand timber and all this really,
like, old industry that madeChicago what it is. This canal
got dug to, I don't know, like,18 feet deep. And where it is
now, it's only, like, 5 or 6feet deep, maybe 8 feet its
deepest point. It's been reallyfilled in.
(06:42):
All the industries have movedout. It's an obsolete canal. The
few barge users of huge largerships that are going up the
North Branch are going aroundthe west side of the island
rather than using this. So itended up being great
opportunity. And I think thecity had kind of interest and
started to do things.
There were a couple other groupspoking around, but ultimately, a
(07:04):
couple of the cofounders andjust a group of people started
trying to push for this thing,which is a vision of using this
space as a park space, as anopen space that was truly
natural and wild because there'ssomething about being on the
Chicago River in particular. Youknow, you're 6 feet, 8 feet, 10
feet down from the surface. Andit's just it feels and it sounds
(07:27):
like a different world downthere. And then you see a great
blue heron and then you see akingfisher and then you see a
beaver swimming around andmuskrats, and you kind of it
hits you all of a sudden that,oh, there's a lot of cool stuff
going on, and people don'treally get to realize it. So
Abigail (07:43):
All while driving by, Kedzi or something like Yeah.
Phil (07:48):
You're driving past what is gonna be the new casino and,
you know, you're driving pastthe mega development and this
old rail yard is now gonna bethese big new condos and all
this other stuff. Low andbehold, you know, right under
your feet, there's a massivesnapping turtle that would take
the world by storm. You know? Sothe wild mile is, yeah, just
(08:08):
taking this underutilized canaland really trying to fit what we
can into the space that we'vegot. And so, Chicago River level
is controlled very tightly.
It fluctuates, you know,anywhere drops maybe a foot when
they expect rain or snow melt,and then they let it fill back
up. And when they're trying tomove water through the area, it
(08:29):
can get, like, 6 or 8 feethigher and, you know,
significant flashes in somepoints. And especially, again,
climate change, storms morefrequent and more violent.
Anything that you do has to beable to handle these. Also have
a need for the center of theriver to be accessible by
emergency boats or things likethat.
So the stuff that we coulddesign in there had to fit
(08:52):
within these certain parameters.We settled on the most effective
solution that we could get donequickest, which would be
floating, artificial wetlands,which are just basically
floating structures where theroots of the plants are growing
hydroponically out of the riverwater, and you get this kind of
easy habitat pieces where you'rejust adding on bits of native
(09:14):
plants here and there, and theneverything you would expect to
come from nice native diverseplant communities. You start to
get a little bit in here. Rootsystems are dangling underneath.
That's a lot of structure forfish and parafytin to grow and
everything to hide behind andlay eggs on and all that good
stuff.
(09:34):
You have some pollution removal,based on the plant growth and
other kind of microbialactivity. You get a little
diversification of the flow ofthe river. You get a little
nooks and crannies here andthere. It's just really easy
pieces of habitat to add intothis big empty box that is the,
you know, the old canal. So, andthen also taking that and adding
(09:57):
a floating walkway alongsidethese floating wetlands so that
not only do these things exist,but people get to get right up
close to them.
You get to see the monarch onthe milkweed. You get to see the
muskrat stealing our plants andrunning back to store them in
the fridge on the other side ofthe river. You you get to see
all these things up close thatyou don't normally get to.
(10:19):
There's a lot of other coolplaces in Chicago that are
really do nature within an urbanenvironment very well, but this
is very much a hybrid thingwhere there was just nothing
there before. You're not gonnabe able to break down the
seawall.
You're not gonna be able to doall this work. You'd like to be
able to do in a riverrestoration, but you can create
these really unique elementsthat also allow people a really
(10:41):
unique opportunity within thecity to just walk right up and
see something really cool onyour lunch break.
Abigail (10:47):
Awesome. We took the Cook County Master Naturalists
to go see this site. We wentkayaking. We got to be in the
Chicago River. It is a reallywonderful site.
I definitely encourage all ofour listeners to check it out if
you're ever kind of doing alittle trip to the city or
anything. It's it's so cool.It's free. It's publicly
accessible. I wanted to makesure that project had to be able
to be talked about because it'sit's how I know you, Phil Yes.
(11:09):
Yes. As well. What we came hereto talk about today is the
history of the Chicago River,and why the heck would we would
talk about the Chicago River inthe first place? It's just one
river in Illinois, not even thebiggest river in Illinois,
right, not even the biggest bodyof water in Illinois. And so why
are we featuring this site?
(11:29):
And so to help us set the stage,I guess, where is the Chicago
River, and what are the otherbodies of water surrounding it
that are part of the story ofthis river?
Phil (11:39):
Yes. And this is one of the most fascinating histories
of just, like, a really specifictime and and even kind of just
exists in this really specifictime of geological history where
it's like everything is set upfor this specific spot on the
planet to be really, reallyinteresting. And, yeah, the size
(12:02):
of the river doesn't matter.It's about the flow. It's about
the the, you know, under theundulations, and it's about the
natural aesthetic.
Yes. The the Chicago Riversystem is super interesting. So,
basically, the formation of theGreat Lakes, the Great Lakes
themselves are not really thatold of systems. You know, 20,000
or 25,000 years old, that's ablink of an eye kinda
(12:26):
geologically. So Chicago sits atthe point in which there's a big
melting of some of theseglaciers, and there's a big dam
that busts open an ice dam thatends up creating, like, the
Moraine Hills State Parkdownstate a little bit.
It's just this point at whichthis huge dam broke and there's
(12:49):
this gigantic deluge of waterand this big washout and slow
draining to the point whereChicago would eventually become
land. In Chicago or just south,there's this little community
called Blue Island named suchbecause it was literally an
island at one point. And allthese kind of cities that have
names like Palos Heights andRidgeview and things like that
(13:12):
used to be overlooking kind ofthis sort of formally submerged,
but that dam breaks, all thatwater drains out. And what you
left
Abigail (13:20):
To clarify, Phil, by dam, you mean geologic dam.
Right? Like, it's not like thiswe're talking way before Right.
Human Chicago establishment.
Phil (13:28):
It's a great point. It's an ice dam. It's, like,
basically formed, oh, justbecause the interior of the big
iceberg is melting, and itcreates, like, this little bowl
where there's a bunch ofmeltwater that's pooling up, and
that is all breaking. That icedam is breaking at once. So,
yeah, we're talking about anenormous, enormous forces that
(13:49):
are shaping the better part ofthe state here.
That drainage leaves us with avery low lying area upon which
Chicago sits. But this is also,like, critically important.
Because this just happened,there's now a continental
connection point between theGreat Lakes and the Mississippi
(14:10):
River. So this is enormousconnection point. And because
human societies throughouthistory have found in themselves
on rivers, it really shouldn'tbe anybody's surprise that
there's just tons of interest insettling along these rivers
where you're talking aboutNative American communities or
more recently colonialists.
(14:31):
And this is it ends up justbeing such a unique point in the
continent because you do havethese unique factors that allow
an relatively unimpeded trafficbetween the Great Lakes and the
Mississippi and the wider riverways. And so it just ends up
being such an important part.But Chicago being so low lying
(14:53):
and still having to drain reallymeans that we've got a couple of
interesting sort of relics. Andon the western edge of Chicago
is the Des Plaines River. Sothat runs from north into
Wisconsin.
Further west, there's the FoxRiver. But the displinings is
really the thing that kind ofconnects us here. It heads down
south, then southwestward. TheChicago River has generally in
(15:20):
the past had two points. They'vehad north branch and a south
branch, which in those dayswould connect into the main
branch, which would then flowout into Lake Michigan.
That south branch was theimportant connector point
because you could come into themain branch off of the lake. You
can go down the south branch,and there was this 3 mile long
(15:44):
muddy lake and then PortageCreek that would then connect
you to the Des Plaines. And soafter making the entire voyage
across Lake Michigan andtraveling all the way down the
South Branch, you only had todrag your canoe across 3 miles
of a muddy lake covered inleeches and things like that to
then get on a creek to then haveaccess to the rest of the river
(16:06):
system. So nice and convenientfor a lot of people. You can
imagine being a young Potawatomilad trying to make that journey
to, you know, get from onevillage to another, and it's
really interesting, but that waswhat settled for convenience
back in those days.
Abigail (16:24):
And there's a park there now, like, kind of,
documenting that history. Like,Portage Park is a space that
has, I think, like, a monumentor of some kind, like, art there
that showcases, like, this was ahistoric space in which, like,
commerce occurred to totransport between the two
(16:46):
systems.
Phil (16:47):
Yes. Yeah. And that's, you know, the state at which when it
was under the when the Councilof Three Fires are there, when
it's the when it's a very NativeAmerican kinda controlled area,
It's very communally based, andit's very gathering space based.
And it's it's meant to be thispoint at which all these
different cultures from acrossthe Great Lakes and across the
(17:09):
region come together to meet intrade and things like that. And
in many ways, even after, youknow, colonialism really occurs,
it's still like that to a greatdegree.
And now the the tenor in whichthe river systems were treated
or what changed in the greatestsense where native communities
(17:31):
would tend to, you know, treatthe river the river with a
little more reverence. I kindof, the some folks we had talked
to before treated it. I calledthem, like, you know, taking
care of your brother orsomething like that, feeling
like it was a familialconnection relationship with
these river systems to a pointwhere we get into 18 fifties
(17:53):
United States and, rivers aremuch more about extraction of
resources, and rivers are muchmore about being controlled and
damned and channelized andthings like this because the
things that make rivers veryvibrant places with lots of
habitat and lots of different,you know, plant and animal
species hanging around are thevery things that make it
(18:15):
difficult for shipping andnavigation. So obviously, if
you're trying to set up anindustry, it does not help you
to have to drag something acrossthe 3 mile muddy lake. So, hey,
let's get rid of the lake andlet's straighten things out, and
it gets to this point in Chicagowhere that original system,
that, you know, South Branch toLake to Portage Creek system
(18:40):
eventually gets replaced by theI and M Canal, which is done,
you know, maybe 1850s orsomething like that.
You start to get that connectionpoint and that ends up, changing
the landscape a good bit. TheWest Fork of the South branch
would still exist even as theShip and Sanitary Canal, which
(19:01):
was built to replace theIllinois and Michigan Canal,
that gets built. So at one time,you have 3 different things
running in parallel. At onetime, you have the Illinois
Michigan Canal, you have theShip and Sanitary Canal, and you
have the West Fork of the Southbranch all running alongside
each other in the samedirection. Each one making the
last one obsolete from a kind ofshipping and commerce
(19:24):
standpoint.
And eventually, the whole thingis made obsolete by the
connection on the Calumet Riverdown south. And so a different,
wider, larger river with easierconnectivity to the rest of the,
Mississippi waterway is dug, andthat's completed by, like, 1930.
So we spent all this timedigging 2 canals along the one
(19:48):
branch for only to be madeobsolete by a different canal a
little bit to the south. Andthen for those things to be made
obsolete by rail and highwaysand planes and things like that.
So we talk about these enormousinfrastructure and all these
scars that we put on thislandscape and all this kind of
destruction of habitat andremoving of the things that make
(20:11):
rivers so vibrant.
And we got maybe a 100 years ofusage out of it. You know? So
this is just a great example ofthe real shortsightedness on,
you know, human part where wehave all this in this
engineering going into somethingthat just is you know, it put us
on the map and it was veryimportant at the time, but it
(20:33):
also set us on a path for thatbeing the case for the next you
know, we have to now spend allthese time and resources to fix
these issues rather than justjust letting them be and kind of
letting them be as they were. Soit's this inherent tension,
especially in cities, where thewaterways, you want them to be
(20:54):
what they should be, but the thethe city is constricting them
and it's confining them and it'sforcing them into this box and
it's making them such that theycan't do the things that are be
as part of the natural world asthey should be. So, yeah, it's
an interesting point, and theserivers have been so altered.
And the thing that peoplegenerally know about, is the
(21:16):
reversal of the river. And soapart for it being for shipping
and commerce, also an importantwater source for Chicago for a
while, too many people weregetting cholera, which is a
waterborne, pathogen. Basically,too many people are pooping in
one area. You're poisoning yourwater source and spreading this,
even further. So the firstresponse of Chicago is to is to
(21:40):
literally dig the Ship andSanitary Canal named such
because you're trying to kind offix the You they dug it all out,
and then they broke the dam onthe south branch, that then
caused the water to drop veryrapidly such that the level of
the river for that time in themain branch in the south branch
(22:02):
was lower than the lake.
And so they have the lock anddam system at Navy Pier in
downtown Chicago. So by keepingthe lake higher than the river
is how they ended up reversingthe river and sending all of
the, detritus of humancivilization downstream.
Abigail (22:20):
Wait. Hold on. So the the lake was higher than the
river, or the river was higherthan the lake?
Phil (22:28):
Yes. The river generally flowing downstream was higher
than the lake, and so the northand south branch would meet at
the main branch, which wouldthen empty out into the lake
just all based on gravity,which, again, very low and flat.
So it's already quite sluggishand not moving a whole lot. But
(22:48):
in this case, in order toreverse it, they dug backwards,
knocked the dam down. All thewater from the river rushed down
there, lowering the level of theriver beneath that of the lake,
and so they could always keep itcoming off of the lake from then
on.
Abigail (23:04):
So for Lake Michigan to now be the kind of source of the
Chicago River, essentially.
Phil (23:10):
Yeah. Yeah.
Amy (23:11):
I guess historical circumstances, you've talked
about the transportation, thecommerce, and then you've talked
about public health. Were thereany other circumstances going on
at that same time for thisdecision to reverse the flow?
Phil (23:30):
Yeah. Well and so and the reversal didn't even really take
care of what they were hopingto. So the other part of this is
that in order the first thingand the the I guess it goes even
further back from that. SoChicago, very low lying. They
built it originally all out ofwood, kind of in the center
(23:53):
little plug of the city.
And when you're that low andthat the river system is so
sluggish, it was like even usingthe river as a sewage system,
which is what a lot of old veryold cities did, there just
wasn't enough gravity to movethe water away quickly. So the
first step that Chicago ever didis built it literally jack the
(24:15):
entire downtown up on stilts.
Abigail (24:19):
Human solutions are sometimes so funny to me. Like,
when you think about, like, whenyou're someone who is always
thinking about, like, what's thenature inspired solution here,
and then you kind of, like, Idon't I'm not I'm not in the
engineering realm as muchsometimes, but I just, like,
giggle sometimes when the answeris, like, let's just lift up an
entire the city.
Phil (24:38):
Not only that. There are stories of moving these wooden
houses, these wooden buildingsthat, like, all the downtown
shops were on and, like,literally rolling them to the
other side and rolling them outof the way to the point where
they'd be, like, people would bein them using them as they're
getting moved to the other sideof the river only for them to
(25:02):
get burnt down in the GreatChicago.
Amy (25:04):
Fire. Oh.
Abigail (25:05):
So Wait. So the the the fire is a good point. As far as,
like, historical, like, justanchoring goes, where are we
talking about as terms of, like,reversal of the Chicago River
and then the fire? Like, whichone was first and so that way
everyone kinda has, like
Phil (25:20):
Oh, the fire is gonna have happened first. The first thing
would have been jacking the cityup on stilts. And then the
Abigail (25:30):
as one does
Phil (25:31):
As one does as one does. The fire would have happened. A
lot of the fire debris actuallygot pushed into the lake and
created a good amount of lakefrontage, which is, I guess,
making lemons, yeah, lemonade.So, yes, the great fire happens,
and then the reversal of theriver happens. In between the
reversal in the river and thefire, they have dug them 2 miles
(25:55):
out into Lake Michigan to buildthe water intake cribs.
So their first solution was justhave the water intake be far
enough from the city such thatthe pollution from the river
that was still emptying into thelake wouldn't reach the water
intakes. So their first solutionwas we'll dig, you know, 100
(26:18):
feet underground, 2 miles out tobuild these massive water
intakes, and that's, like,that's the first bid. And then
the second bid
Abigail (26:26):
So that'll that'll our that'll be our our hopefully
clean water source. Yeah. Right?But, you know, water doesn't
care about political boundariesor if they say that. So
Phil (26:36):
The pollution was too mighty. So, you know, they the
solution didn't even work andsay, yes, then the reversal of
the river and the combination ofthose two things, sets the city
up for where it's going to be.And by the time , the 1930s is
when the Calumet is fully hookedup and the Illinois waterway
(26:56):
becomes the thing it is today.So by about the thirties, even
into the fifties, the West Forkof the South Branch in the I and
M Canal is still getting filledin in bits because they were
obsolete and because they werejust like stinky little sewers
as well as the saw the east forkof the south branch of little
(27:19):
bits that are filled in. So, youknow, once you probably get to
about 1960, the whole system isprobably configured as you would
see it today.
Abigail (27:29):
Okay. So you're saying it was mainly was the public
health concern. Right? It wasour we were doing what we
shouldn't have done, drinkingthe water that we were not
supposed to drink, or pollutingour own waters. So we did it
work?
Like, did are we I mean, I guessit's like what it looks like
today, but were there othermeasures that had to be taken
(27:51):
after? Like, were we seeing asuccessful now, at least for the
city of Chicago, right, on water
Phil (27:58):
So it it worked it worked phenomenally from a public
health from a Chicago's publichealth standpoint. All the stuff
that got flushed down was justgetting pushed downriver. And so
some of the first and this isactually natural history survey
and, you know, U of I. Some ofthe first surveys that are done
(28:18):
out in the Illinois River our,Forbs.
And at some point, I believe in,like, the 1910s or so, it may be
around World War I ish, they'redescribing as 90% of the biomass
that they're pulling out of thatriver as being carp or goldfish.
So there just isn't stuff alivebecause in certain stretches, it
(28:42):
is just the entirety of thecontinent's meatpacking industry
being concentrated in this onearea and all this incredible
pollution being dumped in andit's like that. You know, that's
what they're sending south. Butfor a long way southwards,
you're getting all these kind ofhorrible effects. And then also
throw on top of that the factthat you're converting a massive
(29:04):
prairie state into anagricultural industrial
powerhouse.
So all of these areas thatshould be providing habitat and
filtration of water and are nowgetting fertilizer and
pesticides dumped on them. So itwork in a very limited sense.
And I think if you're looking atkind of the long scale or
(29:24):
environmental, aspects ofthings, it obviously has not
worked. And we're at this pointnow where we've gotta put a lot
of work into fixing thesethings.
Abigail (29:34):
So tell me a little bit more though about those impacts
downstate, like, what we wereseeing less biodiversity of fish
species, any other, what otherimpacts were we seeing due to
the reversal of the river?
Phil (29:48):
Yeah. And it's not even necessarily the reversal of the
river. You know? I think ingeneral, the concept of, you had
enough volume of water afterabout 7 river miles to consider
a lot of things have, you know,the the point sources of
pollution are not necessarily asprominent the further down river
(30:10):
you go. So even though
St. Louis was complaining aboutall this stuff getting sent down
to them, it really was notChicago stuff ending up in St.
Louis necessarily. It's theentirety of the state going from
one point to another and all ofthat stuff also during the end
that would contribute to theseissues. So, yeah, very locally
(30:32):
in Chicago. I mean and it'struly just everything, but it
things on a wider landscapescale too.
You know, like, bald eagles nowbeing around here, and we we can
point to the specific chemicalthat was doing that. You know?
There's there's also just anincredible you know, we think of
freshwater mussels as beingparticularly sensitive to their
(30:55):
environment. And in the Chicagoregion, throughout the most of
the city now, you probably canonly find one native mussel
species, the giant floater,maybe some white heel splitters.
But in general, all these thingsthat you would expect, the
macroinvertebrates, and we dosampling for these all the time.
In areas where there's just somuch organic material and all
(31:16):
this kinda nasty, fluffypollution laden stuff at the
bottom, those environments favorworms and leeches and things
like that that are breaking downorganic material
disproportionately. So it it'san effect from the bottom up.
It's like every bit of it, notto mention the fact that, when
you get big pulses of algae,just like when you end up with
(31:39):
these dead zones at the mouthsof all these rivers and oceans,
it happens in rivers themselvesand in lakes and things like
that. Just the complete loss ofoxygen in areas that even if you
have pockets of robustecosystem, if they're getting
shocked with 0 oxygen eventspretty regularly, You're just
gonna see this, and this istruly what's happened in a lot
(32:01):
of these places, just a topplingof ecosystems and survival of
things that are extremists in alot of different ways. And so,
yeah, it's just it's somethingthat you'd be able to feel no
matter what part of these riversystems you're going into more
acutely or less acutely.
But in Chicago, it's justthere's no habitat and all this
(32:22):
legacy pollution. It is prettyimpressive that things have
found their way, but even so,the water infrastructure
resource resources that the cityand the state federal government
have put in to start cleaning upthis section have had huge
impacts. And we've seen the fishpopulation rebound, and we've
(32:44):
seen these diversity ofdifferent types of organisms and
finding things that you wouldn'thave expect to find necessarily.
And so there's there's reasonfor optimism, but you can't, you
know, you go back a 100 yearsand things look pretty pretty
bleak. You know, it's it's hardto see a way out of that.
And some of it has just beentime. Some of it has been time
(33:06):
and clean air and clean wateract made a big difference in the
seventies. And then, you get theunderground reservoir project,
which starts getting dug in thenineties, which is basically
just all these they're digging abunch of tunnels to connect the
stormwater infrastructure tothese big old limestone quarries
(33:26):
that collectively are able tohold trillions of gallons of
stormwater so that when stormsdo come through, our sewage
system is not overwhelmed, andwe don't have to dump raw
sewage, untreated sewage intothe river, which is, again, one
of those pollutants where it's ahuge shock to an ecosystem. And
(33:48):
if you don't have a very healthyand robust ecosystem, things can
get toppled and get out of handpretty quickly. So just yeah.
Another one of those pieceswhere we we've got a lot of
legacy pollution, but there'sstill stuff that happens today.
Salt, pulses of salt will endup. You know? This is just kinda
typical of urban streamsthroughout the country,
(34:08):
throughout the world, really,but very acute and with a very
long history in Chicago.
Abigail (34:14):
As, you know, what a a lot of you said kinda like I was
thinking about, like, what kindaconnects them all. There's all
these water is, like, theultimate kind of connector of
our landscapes. Right? Like,watersheds are even though it's
not a in a river and a stream,the water is gonna make it do a
river and stream eventually, andthen you know so it can't just
be boiled down to, like, onefactor that causes an issue.
(34:36):
There's a lot of othercomplicated systems and
structures that exist thatcause, you know, maybe sediment
pollution and erosion ornutrient pollution, which is, a
big thing that, you know,Extension works on as well.
And then, you know, pollutants,we haven't even done a lot of
research on and understand evencompletely, are things that are
all part of and then also on topof dealing with, like, old
(34:58):
systems. Right? That now that weknow more information, we know
they're bad. Right? So Yeah.
Working within those thoseknowledge and and just, like,
all the really complicatingfactors that deal that come with
water in general, which is whywe wanted to talk about it this
whole season. Right? We werelike, we can't just do 1 episode
in water. We're gonna do 12. So
Amy (35:18):
Yeah. We when you were talking about earlier, Phil, too
of, like, these solutions thatthey had back in the day, it
just made me think of, like,the, well, I guess, I wouldn't
say permanence, but, you know,when we're making decisions
today or we're, creatingprograms or initiatives or
whatever, like, we have to thinklonger than just that, like, you
(35:39):
know, what's gonna happentomorrow, the next 100 years,
you know, just trying to take alot of that into consideration.
But are there you talked about afew, I think, but are there any
current projects or initiativesthat are going on? I mean,
obviously, your program, youknow, that are going on in in
(36:00):
the Chicago River that you wannahighlight.
Phil (36:03):
Yeah. I mean, that's the Chicago River in particular, and
is is our uniqueness as a city.You know, other places have
other cities have it's all kindof the same challenges, but they
each have such unique contexts.And the city in the way in which
(36:23):
Chicago finds itself is verycontrolled. What's going to
happen over the next 10 or 15years is gonna be very
controlled by how developmentsalong the river are done.
Our hope is that the Wild Mileand some of these other
projects, we have floatingislands up at River Park, more
in the north branch where theNorth Shore Channel and the
(36:46):
actual north branch meet. We'vegot floating islands down at
Bubbly Creek on the South Branchin partnership with Shedd
Aquarium and a couple othergroups. We're hoping that these
things are footholds of naturein areas that are gonna get
redeveloped pretty rapidly. Andif they're done in a wrong way,
(37:08):
are just gonna lock us intoanother 100 years of gray
infrastructure. If they're donethe right way, you have these
incredible opportunities.
And I I think the biggest thingfor us is, like, when we talk
about the historical context ofthese things, really impressing
upon people. Like, look. Thesethese guys spent this much time
(37:28):
and this much money to mess upthe river. Why are we not even
spending a fraction of that tokind of make it better?
Really trying to convince thesedevelopers who are ultimately
the ones that control whathappens on their stretches of
the river, trying to convincethem that the better path
forward is worth the investment.And I think there's a lot of
(37:50):
great examples throughout thecity from a lot of different
groups who are doing things on alot of different scales, and
everything kind of unified alittle bit by the city of
Chicago's River Governance TaskForce, which we're a part of,
which a lot of other groups area part of. There are positive
things for sure. But the thefact that it is in private
(38:13):
development hands just it justmeans that there's a great
opportunity that we really couldmiss, and it'll be for the
dumbest reason of all. We justdidn't have a little bit of
money at the time to kind of putit into things.
So there are great examples.Like, I'm thinking specifically
of, like, Big Marsh Park down inthe on the Calumet River, and it
(38:36):
is like it's attached to theIllinois International Port
District. Like, there's a lot ofshipping that goes on still
throughout there, but there'sthis kind of side channel, this
side area where it's just off ofthe river just enough, but it's
a huge area for a lot of reallyunique habitat. They've done a
lot of work to kinda remediatethose areas. And that is, I
(38:59):
think, a great example of theattempt at doing this the right
way where you're not just makingsomething for this industrial
commercial purpose, but you'realso giving credence to public
access and using it as in seeingas more of a natural resource
rather than a thing to exploit.
In Chicago River in particular,you know, Bubbly Creek has been
(39:22):
really a focal point for a lotof groups. There's a need for
trail connectivity there, sothere's a whole lot of
neighborhoods on the on thesouthwest side of the city that
are not gonna get theirconnection to the river frontage
if there isn't this kind ofwider, trail network developed.
You know, all the affluent areasof the city that shed their
(39:44):
industrial tenants and aregetting replaced by condos and
whatnot are gonna get this niceriver walk that's connected all
the way downtown, and there's arisk of the same communities
they've been disinvested in forall this time or yet another
thing that they don't get accessto. So there's some there's some
things down there that youreally want to a lot of the
(40:05):
neighborhood groups are ralliedaround. A lot of the
environmental justicecommunities are rallied around.
Thinking about the collateralchannel further down, it's more
on the Ship and Sanitary Canal.But in that process of building
the different canals, thischannel was dug to connect the
(40:25):
Ship and Sanitary Canal to thewest fork of the south branch
because there was a guy whobuilt a bridge too low such that
people couldn't get across. Andso now there's this weird random
former connection point that nowjust dead ends because they fill
them the
Abigail (40:42):
I'm sensing a theme, like trial and error on a
massive scale.
Phil (40:47):
A lot less thought that went into this than you would
think they would be. And thenthere's all these, like so
there's great opportunities downthere because these barge slips
and these former connectionpoints actually bypass all this
continued industrial area whereyou still have industrial
tenants and you still have a lotof, you know, you know, job
creating industry. You get theselittle fingers that poke past
(41:12):
those industrial zones and comeright up to the neighborhoods.
So there's opportunities there.And again, it's one of those
things where if a new industrialtenant comes in and they wanna
put barge access and that'sgonna inherently block out
people's access, That'ssomething that we're hoping to
push back against.
And so, yeah, Wild Mile is justone example. The Park District
(41:33):
has a lot of great sites thathave been made, stronger over
the years. The city owns acouple of lots here and there.
People's Gas had 11 sites alongthe river where they would turn,
basically fossil fuel into lampoil. So they had big piles of
(41:54):
coal sitting right on the river.coal or whatever. They would
process it, and then they havethis tar sewer that would dump
right out into the riverunderneath that. So they have
these leavened places where,they have to do this remediation
work both on land and in theriver. One place that is the
exception is actually BubblyCreek where the EPA said that
(42:16):
there was so much new urbanpollution that had come up and
stacked up on top of theirpollution that they weren't
liable for it anymore becausethere was no way it was gonna
escape all the new layers ofpollution that had built up over
time. So it's fun.
Abigail (42:30):
Oh, you made it your problem now. That's what they
Yeah. I'm sensing a a themeamong a lot of these projects,
Phil, though, is, like, it's alot of them are, like, community
driven, community collaborativeprojects. Right? It's not just
somebody coming in and saying,we need to clean this up.
We need to do something aboutthis. Let's fix it. and I'm
(42:52):
thinking of Big Marsh inparticular, a site that's I've
been to several times, and we'vealso taken Master Naturalists
there that really is aboutincorporating the needs of the
community, the needs of thesite, the needs of the, the the
environment there as well. Andthe like, so this kind of
confluence of, like, human andenvironmental need working
(43:14):
together while also recognizingand incorporating the history of
that landscape as well. And Ithink that really creates a
really successful equation forcombo or whatever for for being
able to actually do somethingabout remediation of of the
river and things like that.
Phil (43:33):
Yeah. We'll make it part of the process too. I mean, like
Yeah. And all those pieces downin the if community were not
involved in the process, then,you know, things would just oh,
isn't that a nice little parkthere? If they're involved in
the process, then they're gonnastart, well, why can't why is it
so hard for me to get overthere?
And that's true of Big Marsh,especially. It's this great
(43:53):
resource, and you've gotta walkacross train tracks and major
roads and highways. And so eventhe people that are supposed to
be benefiting from this can'tget there without a car. It's
the kind of thing that wouldengender more political
pressure. You know, when youhave a resource to go to that
people wanna get to, there'smore of a reason to keep pushing
(44:16):
for it versus I mean, throughoutthe river, that's one of the
biggest things that anybodycould say.
Why invest in the river? A lotof oh, it's a dirty, stinky,
whatever body riddled place.Like, all the just silliness you
hear in these different contextfrom people. And it's like, no.
Actually, we can show you howimproved this is and how the the
(44:40):
impact that resources andcommunity effort has made on the
improvement of the health ofthis river.
We actually don't even have thatmuch further to go. You know, we
know what to do. This isn't a ..you can't make the argument that
we went through all this troubleto reverse the river and dig all
these channels, and all of asudden, we can't do anything
anymore. Mhmm. This is yeah.
(45:02):
It's a community driven process,I think, because of all time,
the communities have been theones most left out from the
river in the first place. So itmakes sense that when we're kind
of refocusing who should be inthe driver's seat of these
assets, it really should fall inthese groups. And they've got a
lot of their stuff to work ontoo. You know? They've they've
(45:23):
got a lot of different,priorities in their
neighborhoods and theirconstituencies, but, hopefully,
projects like ours can mainmaintain focus and keep momentum
in building these things so thatwe don't get locked out in these
communities that are, been keptaway or not kept away anymore.
Amy (45:44):
Mhmm. Yeah. That's really amazing. You guys, I mean, just
hearing from you and talking toyou today, Phil, it's it's just
very inspiring and, you know,just to know that that people
are paying attention to that andyou're involving and you're
being very strategic aboutinvolving community. So it's,
yeah, it's really inspiring.
(46:05):
So thank you. We we reallyappreciate you being here with
us and sharing your knowledgeon, this history of kind of our
water resources, which reallyruns down towards me. Right? It
runs down this downstate. So wewe really appreciate you being
here.
(46:26):
Before we wrap up real quick, wewant to, finish today's episode
with an everyday observation,and this is where we highlight
the normal everyday things wesee in the environment, that
actually happens to be reallyinteresting. So, Abigail, I'll
throw it to you first just togive out your everyday
observation.
Abigail (46:46):
Yeah. So mine is, like, very typical of the time of
year. I've been made aware that,my squirrel content is very
popular, apparently. And so,which has brought me back to
just paying attention to thesquirrels again, and they just
get so rotund this time of year.Yeah.
And I just love it. Andactually, I saw one the other
(47:07):
day on our sidewalk, and Ithought it was like a a kitten,
like a cat. And, like, that'show big the squirrels in my
neighborhood are. And so, andthey're gray squirrels. They
should not be that big.
And so so, yeah, I'm just kindof noticing all the animals
preparing for winter,particularly the very, very
round squirrels in myneighborhood.
Amy (47:27):
Yeah. They and they are busy. They are busy. Yes. Phil,
what about you?
Phil (47:32):
You gotta you gotta beef yourself up enough to be able to
off the rats that are the sizethat they are on
Abigail (47:39):
Fair. Fair.
Phil (47:42):
I'm a birder. I'm a very casual bird person. I would not
consider myself a birder, but Ido I can tell the cues when
we're with a birder, when theyget super excited about
something, I know that I shouldbe excited about the thing too.
So we were going around with 1of our graduate researchers.
(48:06):
They were looking for, beaversigns all along the river, which
is a really fun day, setting upcamera traps and things like
that.
And we spotted along the courseof the river a great horned owl,
which, the birder on the boatwas extraordinarily excited
about. And so I took that tomean that's a very good sign.
(48:30):
And, yeah, it's just alwaysinteresting to spot an owl
because you just sort of feellike you're catching them just
getting out of the shower.they're like, don't look at me!
What are you doing here? Stopit. Go away.
And it was just, such a gorgeousbig bird, and I've never seen
one before. And apparently, it'sa lifer for some of these
(48:52):
birders to be able to see it.So, and there was just a I mean,
truly a random Wednesday morningjust boating down the river, and
that's the kinda stuff you canfind. And that's, you know, a
couple years ago, we had seen abald eagle get chased off by
some crows in our turning basinjust right north of us. And so
all kinds of cool stuff.
And I just go and I'm tellingyou, if you got a half hour to
(49:16):
kill, go to any spot along theriver with some binoculars, and
you're gonna see some crazystuff.
Amy (49:21):
Yeah. I love that. Well, I have been my everyday
observation, I'm looking at I'mlooking at my native garden, my
native plant garden in my yardat this time of year, and I have
indigo, baptisia. I have indigoin my yard and, you know, they
have those seed pods that areblack and big and bulky. Well
(49:44):
and I noticed them and remindedme of another time we were out
for an educational event in aprairie north of here, and I had
an entomologist with us.
And I kept open up opening upthese seed pods of the indigo
plant, and I'm like, theselittle bugs keep coming out. Oh,
that's so crazy. Little bugs arecoming out. And I was like, you
(50:05):
know, putting them on my hand,and I then I went up to her and
I was like, what? Like, I feelevery single time I open one,
there's these same bugs thatcome out.
They're the same ones. And she'slike, they're specific baptisia
seed pod weevils. And I justdidn't know. I didn't know that.
I thought that was just crazythat they're so specialized to
(50:27):
that one plant and only on its,you know, seed pod. and so I
just thought that was, like, thecoolest thing. It's they're not
the greatest for the plant,obviously.
Abigail (50:40):
Everyone's got a place. it's ecology.
Amy (50:43):
Exactly. It is. Their food for other things, but then for
the plant, they're, you know,not so great, and they can't get
to all the seed pods. Right? Butbut I just thought that was
really interesting. So maybelook out for those, you know,
Baptisia seed pod weevils whenyou're out there.
Abigail (51:01):
I think it's wild how, like, common they are of all
Baptisia though because, like,it's such a if it sounds like
it's such a specialist of aspecies, so we'll have to do,
like, a little more research onthis this insect because I wanna
know more, because it's not likebaptisia is, like, a popular
yard plant. Right. You know?Right.
(51:24):
So and maybe we'll have to callErin in for this because she
might know. But I think, like, Ijust I need to know more about
this because I knew I also knowabout the baptisia weevils, but
I was like, and I love weevilsbecause I think they're really
cool, looking insects, but Idon't I need to know more about
their ecology to, like, how dothey get around? How do they get
(51:45):
from, you know, indigo toindigo, things like that. Yeah.
I just wanna know.
I wanna know. Some inquiringminds.
Amy (51:51):
Yes. Exactly. Like you said, Phil, like, nature is
kinda happening everywhere, andwe don't know how you know, it's
down there on the river. It's,you know, wherever we are, it's
just everywhere around us, andwe don't understand it all. So I
just think that's the coolestthing.
Phil (52:09):
Good dang hibiscus beetles too. We have the same thing
happening with our hibiscusseed.
Abigail (52:14):
Yes. I got those too, and all I wanted to do was
collect my seed. And I was like,something is
munching on my seed.
Phil (52:21):
So when we have our volunteers go out, they collect
a lot of the hibiscus seed. Wehave to be very careful to tell
them, do not, if you see anyholes, don't grab the pod
because they'll bring theminside, and we add more than one
infestation of these these guyshatch and end up on our walls
and things in our office.Definitely check your seed.
Amy (52:42):
Not good. Not good. Well, cool. Well, thank you again,
Phil, for being with us today onour everyday environment
podcast. We really appreciateyou.
Go off and do the good work.Continue doing the good work
that you're doing. So thanksagain.
Phil (52:55):
Thank you. Come out to the river anytime. We'll show you
around. Plenty of places toexplore, Sigiri.
Amy (53:02):
Sounds great. Well, this has been another episode on the
Everyday Environment podcast.Check us out next week where we
talk with Kara Salazar. She isgoing to talk to us about
compute community planning andsustainable development around
water. So check back next week.
Abigail (53:23):
This podcast is a University of Illinois Extension
production, hosted and edited byAbigail Garofalo, Erin Garrett,
and Amy Lefringhouse.
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