All we can say is it took them long enough. more ›

The Environmental Protection Agency awarded nearly $2.7 million in grants Monday to organizations and agencies in Illinois under the initiative, including $1.1 million to the Chicago Park District to clean up city beaches. more ›

Chicago’s drinking water contains levels of the toxic metal chromium-6 11 times higher than a public health standard established recently in California. more ›

Now it appears the MWRD has changed its priorities and thinks perhaps clean water is important, after all. more ›

One day after the EPA made it clear that they won't abide a Chicago River rife with poo germs, regional water regulators emphatically said they were not ready to clean up. The icky water in question comes from treatment plants operated by the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District, whose Board President Terrence O’Brien came out swinging at a press conference on Friday. Despite a recent court ruling ordering improved water quality on stretches of the waterway and calls from just about everyone else (including the City, State, Feds and local environmental groups) for the District to end the practice of dumping “undisinfected effluent” into the River, O’Brien called cleaning up the Chicago River a waste of taxpayer money. That is quite a statement coming from someone who publicly claimed, "It's my job to clean up our water and keep pollution out of Lake Michigan..." more ›

The disgusting nature of the Chicago River is legendary -- after all, at one point the city had to reverse the thing so we could send all of our (literal) shit downstate instead of into Lake Michigan. The river hasn't been safe for man or beast since before the Cubs won their last World Series, and when we see people rolling their kayaks in the river we just want to throw down a big bottle of penicillin and wish them a painless demise. more ›

City officials announced yesterday that they'll start testing the city's water supply for hexavalent chromium. A study released late last month showed that Chicago's water supply contained higher levels of the metal than what was the standard allowable level in California. The announcement closely followed a memo released by the EPA to more closely monitor levels of the metal made infamous in the movie Erin Brokovich. more ›

We're proponents of tap water over bottled water, but this makes us take some notice. A new study commissioned by an environmental watchdog group found elevated traces of a metal that has been known to cause cancer in tap water samples from 31 cities, including Chicago. more ›

The last time we checked in with the Asian carp, Congress had voted to allocate $6 million to help fight off their invasion, with the money going towards building permanent barriers and studying ways to get rid of the fish. On Friday, the Illinois Department of Natural Resources announced that it would dump Rotenone, a dangerous fish-killing chemical, into the canal between Romeoville and the Lockport Dam next month. more ›

In a situation only slightly less disgusting and tragically hilarious than the time Dave Matthews Band's waste landed on that tour boat, mysterious "splotches" over a three block radius in Lisle may be human poop and pee. Police in the western suburb are investigating a substance that landed on and often stained roofs, lawns, streets, cars, etc. The yellow and brown stains were described as "the size of the palm of [a] hand." While there's... more ›

If you’ve played along Chicago’s lakefront this summer, then you may have noticed the 124 sculpted, painted globes designed by artists with the intent to inspire and empower the public to take action against global warming. Cool Globes: Hot Ideas for a Cooler Planet dots the lakefront north of the Field Museum and at Navy Pier. “Cool Globes presents a vast array of solutions with a clear message: We can solve the problem,” the exhibit’s... more ›

Set your TiVo or tune into The Daily Show with Jon Stewart tonight at 10 PM on Comedy Central to catch Stewart interview Senator Barack Obama. more ›

Yesterday US Congressman Mark Kirk held a hearing at the Shedd Aquarium to discuss the results of a study done by the National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration, which determined Lake Michigan has more mercury pollution than all of the other Great Lakes. more ›

The battle over who really creates the dirty water in Lake Michigan is getting down to who put the doo-doo in the lake. Environmental Protection Agency scientists announced today that they think the cause of high E. Coli levels in Chicago's lake water is a result of animal and bird feces. But North Shore Congressman Mark Kirk isn't taking EPA's, uh, poop. Swinging into action, and using a well-worn Congressional method, on Tuesday Kirk directed the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration to produce a special report on "Cheesehead" sewage problems, a.k.a., Milwaukee dumping their doo-doo into Lake Michigan. more ›