MWRD Discharging Sewage Into Lake Michigan: Beaches Closed

According to news reports the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago has been discharging sewage into Lake Michigan since 1:20 a.m. this morning (Friday).  Chicago and Evanston beaches will be closed through at least Saturday.

What should be of concern to the Chicago area paddling community is the MWRD's apparent failure to adequately communicate to the public when it is putting sewage into Lake Michigan.  As of right now the MWRD's website home page makes no mention of the fact that the MWRD has made Lake Michigan unsafe for swimming and paddling. (The home page helpfully offers up rain barrels, however!).  When you drill down to the "Newsroom" there is no mention of the discharges into Lake Michigan.

The MWRD does have a system where you can sign up to be notified of combined sewer overflow (CSO) events.  This service notifies you by email when the MWRD is putting sewage into a local waterway without treatment.  You then access a map showing what waterways are affected.  My experience has been, however, that the emails can come hours after the MWRD has opened the locks and started sending sewage out into Lake Michigan.  For example, the email I got this morning came 5 hours after the MWRD started putting sewage into Lake Michigan.  Had I been paddling off of Evanston this morning or joining an early class at Geneva Kayak Center Lakeshore in Rogers Park I might have paddled through the plume of effluent as it gushed into Lake Michigan through the locks at Wilmette Harbor.

By copy of this email I hope that Jill Horist, the MWRD's Manager of Public Affairs, will tell us how the MWRD currently communicates sewage discharge information to the public and any plans it might have to improve that communication (e.g., Twitter).  As many readers on this Yahoo group are Lake Michigan paddlers we would welcome MWRD adding this group to any Lake Michigan CSO notification list the MWRD might have.

The issues of stormwater/sewage management and the MWRD strong and extremely costly opposition to proposed IEPA rules that would require MWRD to disinfect sewage before discharging it into area waterways are beyond the scope of this post.  Nevertheless, its work is central to the quality of the water on which--and in which--we paddle.

In the meantime, the many paddlers who plan to be on Lake Michigan this weekend will be finding themselves paddling their way through the condoms, tampon tubes and other unpleasant detritus that fill Lake Michigan when the MWRD discharges sewage into Lake Michigan.  Of course, with the amount of rain we are getting we may be cleaning out our basements instead.

Tom Bamonte