This month, hundreds of Chicagoans will do something that would have been unthinkable a generation ago: Dive into the Chicago River for an organized open-water swim, the first since 1926.
The inaugural Chicago River Swim on Sunday is more than an endurance sporting event. It is a symbol of how far we’ve come toward treating urban rivers, not as scars but as veins.
It is also a moment to recognize the scale of investments that will be needed to complete the restoration of this river and other urban rivers.
The Chicago River was once so polluted it carried industrial waste, human waste and toxic runoff through our city like an open sewer.
During the early 20th century, slaughterhouses so routinely dumped animal waste into the South Branch that one section became unaffectionately known as “Bubbly Creek.” Whatever was decaying down there released enough methane and hydrogen sulfide gas that it continuously bubbled.
To keep that pollution from flowing into Lake Michigan — the source of Chicago’s drinking water — engineers did the unimaginable. In 1900, they reversed the river’s flow. It was a construction marvel but also a monument to just how badly we treated our rivers as dumping grounds.
In recent decades, investment in wastewater treatment, infrastructure upgrades and restoration projects have brought fish and wildlife back to stretches that were once dead zones.
The turnaround began in Chicago with massive upgrades to wastewater treatment. The Metropolitan Water Reclamation District invested billions in the Deep Tunnel project, a 109-mile system of tunnels and giant reservoirs designed to capture storm water and sewage during heavy rains.
Instead of spilling into the river, this polluted water is held and treated before release. Since the system came online in phases over the past few decades, the frequency of sewer overflows into the river has declined dramatically.
At the same time, water quality standards themselves were strengthened. Until 2011, the river was only required to be clean enough to sustain “secondary contact” — boating and paddling but not swimming.
After years of advocacy and legal pressure, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency forced states to adopt more rigorous standards, including disinfection of wastewater before discharge.
The improvements extend beyond pipes and permits. Investments in restoration projects along the riverbanks have naturalized and softened hard industrial edges, creating habitat for fish and birds and space for people.
The Chicago Riverwalk, opened in stages since 2015, turned a neglected industrial corridor downtown into a civic destination where thousands often gather to recreate and celebrate at the end of a summer workday.
Upriver, nonprofits and community groups, such as Friends of the Chicago River, the Shedd Aquarium and Urban Rivers have restored wetlands, planted native vegetation and built platforms for observation, stewardship and research.
More and better data collection about water quality and other measures have helped enrich our understanding about conditions in our waterways. And public education and engagement tools, including H2NOW Chicago, which publicly reports fecal coliform levels in the river every 15 minutes, help drive awareness of their health and value.
Combined, these efforts have transformed some of our region’s most contaminated waterways from liabilities into amenities. Kayakers and boaters now share the water with once-rare species such as largemouth bass, channel catfish and black crappie alongside turtles and herons.
Across the country and around the world, other cities are aiming for similar turnarounds.
New York has worked to clean up the Hudson and the Bronx rivers. Washington is making investments in the Potomac and Anacostia. Wisconsin’s investments in the Milwaukee River have made it a downtown jewel. Los Angeles has been working for decades to restore its paved-over river into a green artery.
In Ohio, when the Cuyahoga River caught fire in 1969, it fueled the nascent environmental movement. Fifty years later, in recognition of the progress made, the Cuyahoga was named “River of the Year.”
And the world watched as Paris brought swimming back to the Seine in time for the Summer Olympics. The global Swimmable Cities movement is growing fast, with 83 cities and communities representing 30 countries around the world.
These efforts are not just about water quality. They are about transforming how we live, turning a back alley into a front porch.
Johnny Weissmuller swims in the Chicago River while a Lincoln Park lifeguard, his brother Pete Weissmuller, carefully watches, circa 1926. (Chicago Herald and Examiner)
The Chicago River Swim should inspire more than civic pride. It should remind us what is possible when we choose to invest in the long, slow work of environmental repair.
Rain gardens, permeable pavement and wetlands reduce flooding and filter runoff. Modernizing wastewater systems prevents sewage from overflowing into rivers during storms. Cleaning up industrial sites and restoring riverbanks make way for parks, homes and offices.
Every dollar spent on river restoration generates economic returns in public health, tourism, property values and climate resilience. Imagine if we treated all of our urban rivers with the same seriousness we reserve for roads and bridges.
This weekend, swimmers in Chicago will be cheered on by crowds of people who likely will never take the plunge themselves. But they will feel the same thrill: the joy of seeing a river once written off as dead now supporting human and aquatic life again.
It is a powerful reminder that our urban waterways are not lost causes. They are opportunities to rally many toward the achievable dream of restoring and enriching them.
The Chicago River Swim is also an invitation for cities across the world to ask: What would it take for all our rivers to be swimmable, fishable and livable again? What would it mean for our civic life if they were?
Alaina Harkness is CEO of Current, the organization behind H2NOW Chicago’s real-time water quality monitoring. She also leads Great Lakes RENEW, a National Science Foundation-backed regional innovation engine with 75-plus partners across six states.
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