For Our Health

“When my brother grew up…he was asked what was a river. He promptly answered: A body of water that has a very bad smell.”
- Mrs. Joseph Frederick Ward in 1919,
on her brother’s perception of the Chicago River

By the mid-1800s, the Chicago River was so foul it was a source of deadly disease. The recipient of the burgeoning city’s waste - human sewage, animal carcasses, and toxic chemicals - the river threatened the city’s drinking water, Lake Michigan.

To address the problem, the City established the Chicago Sanitary District in 1887. Over the next century, the Sanitary District (now the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago) developed a vision for a bright future, based on applying intellect and technology to solve sewage problems.

These engineering marvels included reversing the Chicago River, building the largest sewage treatment facility in the world, and digging 109 miles of massive tunnels, as deep as 360 feet below the city.