Friends of the Chicago River opened the McCormick Bridgehouse & Chicago River Museum to great fanfare in 2006 with a ribbon cutting with Mayor Richard M. Daley, a grand gala, and a host of other celebratory activities. Since then over 60,000 people have visited this one-of-kind singular museum.

Chicago is here because the river is here and it flourishes because early engineers figured out how to build a multitude of moveable bridges that allowed commerce to thrive and the city to grow.

Today Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced a new water infrastructure plan that commits $50 million to green infrastructure that allows stormwater to infiltrate into the ground. His action will reduce the amount of pollution to the Chicago River by reducing the amount of stormwater that flows into our combined sewer system, and ultimately the Chicago River, picking up pollutants along its way.

After years of advocacy by Friends of the Chicago River, the Environmental Law & Policy Center, Sierra Club of Illinois, Center for Neighborhood Technology and Openlands, the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago adopted a new Watershed Management Ordinance Thursday, October 3 that is essential for preventing floods, protecting wetlands and safeguarding our rivers and streams.

The massive restoration plan for Horner Park is advancing as community members start to better understand the great impact the project will have on the riverbank and the river.

On September 28, Friends' education manager, Mark Hauser, served as a key expert on the Chicago Tribune's second Chicago River Wildlife Cruise. This time they traveled down the South Branch to Bubbly Creek spotting a multitude of birds and other creatures including black crowned and great blue herons.

 Thirteen years after Friends first called for sewage treatment plant effluent disinfection in our report, Waterways for Our Future, yesterday the ceremonial shovels hit the ground.

A massive riverbank restoration project at Horner Park was under attack by neighbors who were concerned that the plan removed too many trees. The US Army Corps of Engineers revised the high quality ecosystem restoration plan to address the objections.

The Chicago River has been improving for years but there are still complex problems that must be dealt with. Find out more about it as Chicago Now explores the Chicago River with Friends' executive director, Margaret Frisbie.

The Chicago River is no longer the dumping ground it used to be, yet there is still plenty of garbage thoughtlessly discarded near and in the river not to mention what flows in during rain events or combined sewer overflows. Find out how that garbage impacts the river's health through a new study.