Chicago Waterways Restoration Framework Plan
River improvements to benefit people and wildlife
The Chicago Waterways Restoration Framework Plan focuses on two urbanized river systems that are significant to Chicago’s history, economy, ecology, and quality of life.
One is the Chicago River system that has historically flowed from both the north and south of the city toward Lake Michigan through what is now downtown Chicago. The other is the Calumet River system that includes Lake Calumet and the Calumet, Little Calumet, and Grand Calumet Rivers, which have historically connected with Lake Michigan near Chicago’s southern border with northern Indiana.
First Peoples
Approximately 12,000 years ago humans first explored the Chicago region as the glaciers receded and the environment became more welcoming to plants and animals. The peoples that followed adapted to changes and altered the landscape for their needs. The Chicago Waterways Framework Plan acknowledges that the study area includes the traditional unceded homelands of the Council of the Three Fires: the Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi Nations. Many other tribes such as the Miami, Ho-Chunk, Menominee, Sac, and Fox also called this area home. This region has long been a center for Indigenous people to gather, trade, and maintain kinship ties. Members of this community continue to contribute to the life of this city and to celebrate their heritage, practice traditions, and care for the land and waterways.
Introduction
Both the Chicago and Calumet systems are among the most altered river systems in the Midwest, having experienced reversal of flow, stream channel relocation, channelization, removal of plant communities, reduction of ground water inflow, erratic inflows of effluent from storm sewers and adjacent properties, and other forms of man-made degradation. Though water quality in the Chicago and Calumet systems have improved since the early 2000s, additional enhancements are needed to maximize the systems’ value for fish, wildlife, plants, and people.
In April 2019, the Chicago Department of Planning and Development (DPD) requested the U.S. Army Corps. of Engineers to use its Planning Assistance to States (PAS) program to assist in updating and expanding data on the city’s inland waterways and developing a comprehensive planning framework for the Chicago and Calumet systems.
With input from the City’s River Ecology and Governance Task Force, DPD and the Army Corps invited the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago (MWRD), the Forest Preserve District of Cook County, and the Chicago Park District to join the partnership, starting a robust collaboration to develop a Chicago Waterways Restoration Framework Plan.
The Plan
The Chicago Waterways Restoration Framework Plan supports and integrates ongoing and future ecological rehabilitation and community and industrial initiatives that are being conducted citywide by citizens, businesses, non-governmental organizations, and local, state, and federal partners. Throughout the process of developing the plan, the partner agencies provided:
- A forum for riverfront communities to propose and review concepts and plans for public access and engagement with the water
- Opportunities to propose river system visions and projects that benefit all communities, people, and nature
- An invitation to engage other communities without direct access to the river through other water-related issues, such as wetlands, stormwater management, and climate-change related impacts.
The Chicago Waterways Restoration Framework Plan is available at the link below:
Five Regions
The following sites have been identified by PAS partners and public stakeholders as potential opportunities for habitat restoration, public recreation, or stormwater management activities.
Eighty-two sites have been identified by PAS partners as potential opportunities for habitat restoration, public recreation, and stormwater management activities within the Chicago and Calumet river systems.
Descriptions of the systems' five regions and select proposed projects are available at the links below. The regions include:
Past Plans
The following list represents both plans adopted by the Chicago Planning Commission and community led planning initiatives.
Little Calumet River Conservation Action Plan (2021) - Calumet IEPA North Branch Chicago River Watershed TMDL Report (2020) - North Branch Above Fork USACE Bubbly Creek Feasibility Study (2020) - South Branch Wild Mile Framework (2019) - North Branch Chicago River Design Guidelines (2019) - Chicago River Upper North Branch River Audit (2019) - North Branch Above Fork Draft Little Village Framework (2018) - South Branch North River Communities Neighborhood Plan (2018) - North Branch Above Fork A Framework for the South Branch Parks (2018) - South Branch North Branch Framework Plan (2017) - North Branch Chicago River Trail Action Plan (2017) - All Chicago Park District Master Plan (2017) - All Great Rivers Chicago (2016) - All Chicago Nature and Wildlife Plan (2016) - All Calumet Open Space Reserve Plan (2015) - Calumet MWRD North Branch of the Chicago River Detailed Watershed Plan (DWP) and Phase B Report (2011) - North Branch
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