‘A Really Monumental Day’ for Chicago River: Clean Enough for Hundreds to Swim In

More than 250 swimmers jumped into the Chicago River on Sunday morning, marking the first open-river swim in the once-polluted urban waterway in nearly a century.

After a false start last year, the city approved the Chicago River Swim event earlier this summer. 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.

Beyond its charitable angle, the swim marked a significant milestone for the health of the Chicago River, once known as a fetid soup of industrial and animal waste rather than a recreational hub fit for humans. 

“This is a really monumental day for the city of Chicago and for the Chicago River system. This demonstrates that we have invested in clean water public access, and that the future of our river is swimming and recreation,” said Margaret Frisbie, executive director of Friends of the Chicago River, a nonprofit dedicated to cleaning the river. 

She added: “When you think about the impact from the climate crisis, livable cities are swimmable cities. All over the world, people are opening up their rivers for people to recreate, which cools the city, gives you a chance to get out of your hot house and somewhere that’s going to build your public health, your physical health, your mental health, and make you safer. So this, to me, demonstrates that Chicago’s making this kind of commitment.”

Among the other cities opening up their local waterways to swimmers is Paris, which promised a cleaner Seine ahead of the 2024 Olympics, though E. coli levels were unstable and possibly unsafe throughout the summer games. This summer, the Seine opened up to the public and welcomed throngs of locals and tourists alike.

Despite heavy downpours the night before the Chicago event and in the early morning, swimmers and skeptical spectators alike were encouraged by water-quality testing conducted by the University of Illinois Chicago. 

The testing, the same type used by the Chicago Park District to analyze water quality at the city’s beaches, measured for the DNA of fecal indicator bacteria, enterococci, according to the event’s website. The fecal contamination measured on Sept. 20 fell far below 1,000 calibrator cell equivalents per 100 milliliters of water, putting it within the acceptable threshold for swimming.

Swimmers lined up just before 7 a.m. along the Chicago riverwalk, a public works project from the early aughts that signaled the city’s commitment to transforming the waterway into a community and tourist destination. The swimmers—who each raised at least $1,250 to participate—doffed their fluffy white robes, popped on tight, blue caps and strapped on neon orange buoys to boost their visibility in the dark green water.

“All over the world, people are opening up their rivers for people to recreate.”

— Margaret Frisbie, executive director of Friends of the Chicago River

Patrick Connor of suburban Glenview, Illinois, was ready to take the plunge. A regular pool swimmer, he had never competed in an open-water swim but felt “perfectly comfortable” about the Chicago River’s cleanliness given the data from UIC. Connor also wanted to prove a point to the world that the river was safe for swimming, which was not the case when he moved to the city almost 40 years ago.

“It was just full of trash floating around. You could never swim in it,” he said. “So this is totally exciting. It’s so good for the city, too: It puts it globally on the map as the one event that matters today.”

Throughout much of its history in the 19th and 20th centuries, the Chicago River served as the city’s dumping ground. Part of the river earned the infamous moniker “Bubbly Creek” due to the methane bubbles that emerged from rotting animal parts discarded by the city’s meatpacking industry. 

Rather than quell the spread of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, the river fueled the flames with the oil and debris floating on its surface. 

Even as its conditions improved by the 21st century, the Chicago River couldn’t catch a break. On Aug. 8, 2004, the Dave Matthews Band tour bus dumped 800 pounds of human waste into the river and onto a tour boat passing under the bridge. On Sunday, one spectator standing on a bridge reassured swimmers they were safe from further fecal matter with a sign that read, “DON’T WORRY. DAVE MATTHEWS ISN’T HERE.”

Today, Chicago’s environmental advocates point to decades of federal, state and local investments that made the river swimmable. Chicago Department of Environment Commissioner Angela Tovar traced the river’s improvements from the days of Mayor Richard J. Daley, who declared in June 1970, “I hope to see the day there will be fishing in the river … perhaps swimming.” 

She also credited the Chicago Metropolitan Water Reclamation District’s Tunnel and Reservoir Plan (TARP), which added a massive amount of storage for stormwater and sewage to prevent bacteria and harmful nitrogen compounds from running into the river.

Though Tovar stood on the sidelines during the event, she wouldn’t mind taking a dip herself one day.

“I don’t plan on it today, but I certainly would have loved to have the opportunity,” she said.

Deanna Doohaluk, senior watershed planner for the Conservation Foundation, has swum in multiple urban rivers, from the James River as it flows through downtown Richmond, Virginia, to the Three Rivers Marathon Swim in Pittsburgh. She enjoys swimming through cities because it celebrates urban rivers that have recovered from a history of mistreatment.

“We used to use them for disposal of chemicals, even human waste … but now we look at them as an asset to our cities,” said Doohaluk, who spoke to Inside Climate News a few days ahead of her swim on Sunday. Doohaluk has lived in Chicago for the last 20 years and remembers a time when restaurants didn’t line the riverfront as they do today.

“When I moved here, people still turned their back at the river,” she said. “Now we have the amphitheater, we have the light shows, we have all those restaurants. People are clamoring to integrate that river into their community.”

Under cloudy skies Sunday morning, schools of swimmers stretched alongside pods of volunteer kayakers monitoring their safety. Two groups completed a 1-mile and 2-mile race, lapping past the city’s gargantuan, art deco Merchandise Mart and corn-cob-shaped Marina City towers. 

Competitors emerged from the water beaming and praising its cleanliness. 

“Did you see any bodies?” a friend joked to Terrie Albano, a born and raised Chicagoan, as she got out.

“Didn’t see any bodies, didn’t see anything like that,” said Albano, who works for the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District. “Didn’t see any fish, either.”

Her friend Aliza Becker joined her in the swim but was more skeptical of its cleanliness ahead of the event until she spoke with Albano.

“We grew up with, you get a tetanus shot if you go anywhere near the water,” said Becker. “I live a block from the river in the north and my dream is to be able to get up in the morning and jump in the North Branch, which is gonna take a lot longer.”