Swimmers Return To Chicago River For 1st Time In A Century, Marking Watermeans’s Dramatic Transformation

DOWNTOWN — For the previous 98 years, swimming within the Chicago River was unthinkable.

The once-contaminated river was a dumping floor for industrial air pollution and sewage, creating poisonous smells that stored would-be swimmers far-off.

But as we speak, the Chicago River is cleaner than it was many years in the past, and Sunday marked the primary time an open-water swim has been held within the river since 1926. Organized by nonprofit A Long Swim, the occasion celebrated the town’s progress towards cleansing the river whereas elevating cash for ALS analysis and youth swim education schemes.

For Olivia Smoliga, a two-time Olympian from suburban Glenview, the chance was too historic to move up. After ending her one-mile race in first place, she felt ecstatic to be a part of historical past.

“I think it definitely will change the way that people see the river,” she mentioned. “Truthfully, each time we’d do a ship tour — hey, I’m prepared to leap in it. I wish to bounce in, at all times, so the truth that I used to be capable of do it and [Chicago) cleaned it up, it’s so nice.”

Early Sunday, 500 open water swimmers dove into the river’s main stem, swimming from the Dearborn Street bridge to Wolf Point and back to the Clark Street bridge. Spectators watched the one- and two-mile swims from the Riverwalk.

The day started off with some rain, which stopped before swimmers began to jump off the Riverwalk. Swimmers lined up in bathrobes and blue and red swim caps between the Dearborn and Clark streets bridges, with orange identification pouches attached to their sides.

After applying to compete in the open swim, Wilmette resident Sarah Rainey loved getting to see the city from a completely different angle.

“It’s a different type of architecture tour,” Rainey said. “I’m just excited to do it. It’s the first time in nearly a hundred years that anyone’s got to do it.”

River swims used to be a feature of life in Chicago in the early 20th century, but official swim events in the river ended in 1926, according to A Long Swim.

In 1900, the city reversed the flow of the river, sending sewage-riddled water away from Lake Michigan to protect its primary source of drinking water. In the years that followed, open water races popped up to celebrate, even though the clean river in those days was short-lived.

“They would attract some of the top swimmers in the world, and thousands of spectators were in these old newspapers we found. But they were celebrating the fact that the river was so clean after its reversal,” said Doug McConnell, co-founder of A Long Swim. “We’re doing the same thing, celebrating that the river is so clean after all of the hard work that’s been done by the city, by the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District, and the nonprofits that are here.”

The first river swim in nearly a century was supposed to take place last year, but A Long Swim’s event was moved to Lake Michigan after the city denied its permit for an event in the river. After this year’s successful event, A Long Swim plans to hold the event again in 2026.

Is The River Actually Safe To Swim In Now?

The 1972 Clean Water Act helped turn around the river’s fortunes, setting national goals to regulate pollution and stop illegal dumping. In the 1980s, the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago, Cook County’s sewage and stormwater agency, finished the first 31 miles of its Deep Tunnel system, taking sewage and stormwater to giant reservoirs where the water can be treated — and kept out of local riverways.

In 2011, Chicago’s rivers met recreational water quality standards set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, finding that the river was swimmable, said Margaret Frisbie, executive director of Friends of the Chicago River.

“We secured the standard, but there wasn’t all the other infrastructure in place to be like, okay, just jump in the water,” she said. “What we’ve been doing since then is trying to work to build awareness of swimming as a value for Chicago.”

This September, Friends of the Chicago River was awarded the Thiess International River Prize by the International River Foundation for their work revitalizing the Chicago-Calumet River system.

“I think what the swimming is going to demonstrate for people is that a new benchmark has been set,” Frisbie said. “There is a true cultural shift about to occur in how people view the river because people believe the things that they see and what they’re [seeing] is folks swimming.”

To put together for the open swim, occasion organizers carried out a number of kinds of testing to make sure the water is secure earlier than the occasion.

Abhilasha Shrestha, a professor on the University of Illinois Chicago, led a workforce testing river water within the weeks main as much as the occasion. By pulling up bottles of water at completely different factors within the river and taking them to a lab for testing, her lab measured how a lot fecal indicator micro organism are current within the water to find out if it’s secure to swim, like they’re additionally doing with the Chicago Park District at public seashores every day.

Current, a nonprofit water innovation hub, can be doing real-time water high quality testing on the river by means of sensors that detect tryptophan—an amino acid that’s presence usually signifies fecal matter is within the water. Real-time water high quality updates on the Chicago and Calumet Rivers can be found on the H2ONow website, which is sort of a climate app however for swim security.

In the previous a number of years, many Chicagoans have been embracing websites alongside the river as locations for recreation and wildlife. Places just like the Wild Mile, a floating ecopark close to Goose Island run by nonprofit Urban Rivers, and Park 571 alongside Bubbly Creek have change into standard public inexperienced areas.

While the river has change into cleaner over time, its security for swimming can fluctuate from each day. Weather occasions, like storms and rainfall, can introduce contaminants from runoff water, carrying pollution like micro organism, oil, and fertilizers into the river. When stormwater occasions overflow the town’s sewer system, it may well discover its means within the river, together with trash and litter.

With the principle stem of the river nearer to Lake Michigan, the Riverwalk space is probably going the cleanest portion. Stephen Meyer, volunteer coordinator with Urban Rivers, recollects how their volunteers who work on cleansing up the river will usher in trash from across the Wild Island and Bubbly Creek. After a double shift, “it’s normal for them to bring up well over a hundred pounds.”

River security can fluctuate, mentioned Current’s founder, Alaina Harkness.

“That’s the main message whenever anyone asks me how the river is doing. Over time? Much better. But over any given season, it’s variable,” she mentioned. “It’s a living, moving thing that reflects the conditions around us, and it’s a receptacle for a lot of what we’re doing out here on the streets and roads.”

Swimming For A Cause

The Chicago River is commonly preventing its previous stigma of air pollution and decay. But many swimmers mentioned Sunday you wouldn’t have thought the physique of water at one level had such a stigma.

“Honestly, it’s about the same,” swimmer Sam Darrigrand, from Michigan, mentioned of swimming within the river versus Lake Michigan. “The lake has better clarity, so you can’t see underwater. But other than that, it’s about the same.”

Growing up in Chicago, Rebecca Mann at all times wished to swim within the river, so she jumped on the first probability she received. She completed first in her two-mile race, excited to compete towards different racers and lift cash for ALS analysis.

“Open water swimming is my passion, and the fact that I can do my passion to help other people and make the world a better place makes me really happy,” she mentioned.

After shedding his father to ALS and after his sister was identified, McConnell felt like he needed to do one thing. Taking his lifelong ardour for swimming and inspiration from fundraising open swims in different cities, A Long Swim grew to become a strategy to increase cash for scientific analysis whereas celebrating the clear river as we speak.

The occasion’s proceeds will go towards ALS analysis at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, in addition to to youth swim security education schemes. It raised roughly $150,000 for ALS analysis and $50,000 to assist 2,000 youth swimmers on the Kroc Center, run by the Salvation Army in Chicago.

“We’ve been stuck in that perception that the water is so unhealthy and it’s toxic. When people refer to it as an industrial waterway. There’s nothing like having hundreds of swimmers in there to show that’s not what it is anymore,” he added.

Chicago’s Chief Sustainability Officer, Angela Tovar, hopes that the occasion will change folks’s minds on the river from once-polluted waterway to a recreation area they will have a good time throughout its three branches.

“The river definitely gets a bad rap … We can move away from that reputation of the river as just a toxic dump and really think about how far we’ve come, not just here Downtown, but across our neighborhoods, too,” she mentioned.

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