Friends Supports MWRD Investment at Skokie Treatment Plant

Friends of the Chicago River commends the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago (MWRD) for its recent announcement to invest nearly $400 million at the O’Brien Water Reclamation Plant in Skokie, to upgrade infrastructure at the plant over the next four years.

This investment, which was announced October 8, will help improve water quality by removing phosphorus from wastewater, helping prevent harmful algal blooms, protecting aquatic life, and supporting a healthier, more resilient Chicago-Calumet River system. Investments like this are essential to meeting increasingly stringent water quality standards and advancing a vision for a river system that supports people, water, and wildlife.

In 2017, the MWRD, Friends of the Chicago River, the Sierra Club, Illinois Chapter, and other environmental groups agreed to work together to set a limit on the amount of phosphorus the MWRD can release into the river system. Phosphorus comes into MWRD treatment plants both in raw sewage and stormwater runoff.