Greetings

The Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago (MWRD) is one of the world’s largest wastewater treatment agencies, serving the equivalent of 10 million people with an annual budget of $1.6 billion (the sixth largest public budget in Illinois). I am now in my fourth year of service as one of nine elected members of the Board of Commissioners and chair the committees on Stormwater Management and State Legislation and Rules.

I have made it a practice each year to produce a report on my activities — to tell the people of Cook County what I have been working on and to share my thoughts on some of the challenges we face. Asian carp, for instance, jumped into the headlines in late 2009.

It’s been said that all problems started out as solutions, a clever quip worth remembering. The solution to the problem of Chicago’s contaminated drinking water in the 1880s was to dig the 28–mile Sanitary and Ship Canal connecting the south branch of the Chicago River with the Des Plaines River, to construct a lock at the mouth of the Chicago River, and use water from Lake Michigan to flush our sewage downstream. St. Louis wasn’t happy but the reversal of the Chicago River allowed Chicago to become a great metropolis.

But that grand engineering feat — I call it The Audacity of Slope — in turn created several other problems: the canal became a conduit for invasive species to move between Lake Michigan and the Mississippi River system, and the river’s reversal created a significant diversion of water from the lake. Today we’re spending millions of dollars to try to prevent invasive Asian carp from getting into the Great Lakes where it is feared they will decimate the sport and commercial fishery worth an estimated $7 billion annually. As a result, a cluster of state and federal agencies are deploying a range of techniques — including poisoning all fish in stretches of the Chicago waterways — to keep carp from reaching Lake Michigan. Gefilte fish, anyone?

(For a more extensive description of the Asian carp threat, view or download my 2009 annual report.)

In 2009, the MWRD also released a draft Watershed Management Ordinance to establish minimum standards for managing rainwater in suburban Cook County. These new regulations, once adopted, will help to reduce flooding and protect water quality in rivers and streams. Daunting challenges remain: pharmaceuticals in water sources, climate change, aging infrastructure. Fortunately, the MWRD has many able, dedicated employees who relish the opportunity to tackle tough assignments. Count me among them!

Thank you for the opportunity to serve,

Debra

PS: Periodically, I have been posting short essays on The Huffington Post — you can dip into them here — and sending out occasional electronic newsletters. If you would like to receive these, please contact me at .