For the first time in nearly a century, the Chicago River hosted an organized open swim.
The race on Sunday drew 263 swimmers and celebrated the river’s environmental turnaround.
Memories of the river’s industrial past are a fixture for Chicagoans. On its website promoting the race, organizers posted a “water quality plan” under the headline “We know what you’re thinking.”
@herenowradio The Chicago River was once rife with pollution. But thanks to cleanup efforts and the Clean Water Act of 1972, it's safe to swim in again. To hear the full story, click the link in our bio and listen to our podcast, "Here & Now Anytime." 🎥 : Chris Bentley/Here & Now♬ original sound - Here & Now - Here & Now
Abhilasha Shrestha of the University of Illinois Chicago tested the river nine times over the 19 days leading up to the event and said water quality exceeded federal standards for swimming.
“It is very clean,” she said. “It’s up to 70 or 80 species of fish here, which is a testament to how clean the water is and that it is able to sustain the wildlife.”
A recent survey by Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium found species generally thought to be pollution-intolerant, like juvenile brook silverside and mimic shiner fish, have returned to the river.
Shreshtha credited the cleanup to environmental measures taken by the regional wastewater authority, federal regulators like the Environmental Protection Agency and local activists like Friends of the Chicago River and Urban Rivers.
“It’s finally paying off,” she said. “With hard work, dedication and advocacy, we can get this to the level where people are able to swim, and we have a historic moment right here, right now.”
Doug McConnell put together The Chicago River Swim to benefit his nonprofit, A Long Swim, which raised $150,000 for research into Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. McConnell founded the organization with his sister, Ellen McConnell Blakeman, after their father died from ALS and she was diagnosed with the disease.
“I have [swam] in the Chicago River and it’s perfectly delightful,” said McConnell, a longtime competitive swimmer whose open-water swims have included crossing the English Channel. Growing up in the area, McConnell said he never thought he’d see people swimming in the river with such fanfare.
“People would use words like ‘toxic,’” McConnell said. “But during my lifetime, we’ve witnessed this fabulous turnaround.”
Swim events were a regular occurrence in Chicago in the decades after 1900, when the city reversed the flow of the river to flush its waste away from Lake Michigan. Pollution soon overwhelmed the river, and organized swims stopped after 1927. Water quality has rebounded since the Clean Water Act of 1972, and many Chicagoans have embraced the river as a venue for fishing, kayaking and riverside strolls.
Luke Maurer was excited to be one of the first swimmers to revive the tradition of organized swim events downtown. The 24-year-old from Wilmette, Ill. came in third, swimming two miles without a wetsuit in 40 minutes and 20 seconds. Becca Mann won the two-mile race with a time of 40 minutes and 7 seconds, and Isaac Eilmes came in second with a time of 40:13.
“I got beat by a few people, but I had a blast,” Maurer said. “I was a little nervous, to be honest, I think most people were. But when you got going, it was like any other swim. It was nice, it was warm, it wasn’t too murky. It was a great time.”
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Chris Bentley produced and edited this segment for broadcast with Todd Mundt. Bentley also produced it for the web.
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
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