The Environmental Impacts Of The Chicago River Reversal

Curious City

WBEZ Chicago

Society & Culture, Education, Public, Chicago, Arts, City, Radio, Curious, Investigation

4.8 • 642 Ratings

🗓️ 25 March 2021

⏱️ 14 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We dug into the Curious City archives and pulled out one of our favorites, a story about the Chicago River. Chicago’s bold maneuver to reverse the Chicago River diverted sewage away from Lake Michigan, allowing Chicago’s continued growth. But it was hardly a perfect solution. The effects of the groundbreaking engineering feat are still being felt today -- even as far as the Gulf of Mexico. Reporter Carson Vaughan has that story.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, I'm Curiosity Multimedia Producer Maggie Sivitt.
0:05.5	Last month, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker pledged
0:10.3	to help keep Lake Michigan safe from the invasive carp species working their way up the
0:15.0	Illinois River to our Great Lake.
0:18.0	And that news got us thinking about the health of Chicago's waterways and reminded us of a
0:22.4	story we did back in 2019 when we got a question about the environmental effects of the
0:27.6	reversal of the Chicago River. Coming up, journalist Carson Vaughn has that answer. Plus a peek
0:35.1	at something fun Curious City has in store for all you runners and walkers this spring.
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1:12.2	newsroom thriving for years. Start or increase your monthly gift by $3 today at WBEZ.org
1:19.1	slash donate. Not long after 1900, farmers up and down the Illinois River began to notice something
1:26.7	troubling.
1:30.4	Their once fertile land was growing soggy.
1:34.4	The river was spilling over its banks and across their fields.
1:37.5	Sometimes they couldn't plant their crops at all.
1:40.6	And when they could, they were far less productive.
1:46.9	These central Illinois farmers blamed Chicago, specifically the reversal of the Chicago River. Nearly 300 landowners claimed the dirty water now flowing downstream and into the
1:53.8	Illinois River was drowning their crops and threatening their way of life. Carson Vaughn has the story.
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