Chicago River Clean Enough for Swimming for the First Time in 98 Years

Over 250 people participated in the first open-river swim in the Chicago River for the first time in almost 100 years, marking a milestone in the city’s efforts to clean up the river and make it safe for swimming.

As Leigh Giangreco explains in Inside Climate News, “A local nonprofit, A Long Swim, organized the historic 2-mile race through the river’s downtown branch, which raised funds for ALS research at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine and swim safety education for at-risk children in Chicago.” Chicago joins a list of other world cities, including Paris, that are working to improve water quality in their iconic rivers and make them safe for human recreation. 

In the 19th and 20th century, the Chicago River served as a dumping ground for waste from the city’s meatpacking industry. Now, decades of work and investment have dramatically improved the water quality. According to Chicago Department of Environment Commissioner Angela Tovar, the Chicago Metropolitan Water Reclamation District’s Tunnel and Reservoir Plan (TARP) “added a massive amount of storage for stormwater and sewage to prevent bacteria and harmful nitrogen compounds from running into the river.”