The Chicago River has been in the news quite a bit these last few months, and for a waterway long treated as a transportation corridor and sewage receptacle, its future is looking brighter — even as city officials, water quality experts, wastewater treatment engineers, and environmental activists admit there’s a long, long way to go. Today on public radio WBEZ’s local affairs radio show, Eight Forty-Eight, the Chicago River was a main topic of conversation between host Alison Cuddy and Henry Henderson of the Natural Resources Defense Council. Henderson was the first head of Chicago’s Department of Environment, an agency that ironically may come under the chopping block in Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s recent plans to address major budget shortfalls. (A prospect which illustrates that even as progress can be make on one environmental front, two steps back can occur on another.)

The good news: after a major turnabout in the summer by the MWRD, which now plans (finally) to eventually add a final disinfection stage to its wastewater treatment process before releasing treated water back into the river, the mayor’s office announced on 19 Sept 2011 that it will seek to “make the Chicago River the city’s next environmental frontier” by funding major restoration efforts in the river’s riparian corridors and by building four boathouses along the river to increase boating access and activity along the waterway. While the latter effort will not directly improve the quality of the river’s water, any increase in recreational use of the waterways adds to the perception of their economic and cultural value, and inspires us to see the rivers as living ecosystems rather than just channelized barge pathways or open sewers.

Also see this article by the Chicago Tribune’s environmental reporter Michael Hawthorne for more details on the various plans for the river and the proposed locations for the boathouses — one of which is planned for a new park located near the mouth of Bubbly Creek, one of the historically most polluted sections of the river.

Such developments are well-timed for my SUST 220 Water class this semester at Roosevelt, since we’re planning a canoe trip on the North Branch of the Chicago River from Goose Island to Wolf Point on October 8^th with Friends of the Chicago River. Expect a report on that urban nature adventure!