TAKING THE PLUNGE
Swimming in CAWS closer than you think
As Capt. Pat Harrison launched on the Sanitary and Ship Canal in September, he said: ‘‘ Whenever I played by the river, my mother would say, ‘ Whatever you do, don’t touch the water. You will get polio.’ It blows my mind to catch fish where my mother said not to touch the water.’’ That’s primary contact. Decades ago, Harrison swam off the abutment by the ‘‘ Jackknife Bridge,’’ just downstream of the Daley Launch.
I grew up swimming in creeks in which Holstein cows were pooping. Who am I to wonder why people want to swim in the Chicago River?
With curiosity as much as anything, I attended the 2017 Chicago River Summit — ‘‘ Swimming the Distance: How Do We Get From Here to There? — on Thursday on the east side of the South Branch at Jackson.
I expected the pipe dream of do- gooders, but it was much more. Public swimming in the Chicago Area Waterway System ( CAWS) will be here very soon.
‘‘ It turned from an ‘ if ’ to a ‘ how- and- now’ conversation,’’ Richard Wilson, the director of city design at Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture, said during the closing panel.
The holdup isn’t the water quality; it’s the mechanics of swimming an urban waterway and public perception.
About the mechanics, Jessica Dexter, an attorney for the Environmental Law & Policy Center, began her presentation with this: ‘‘ When I started a decade ago, giving a talk on swimming would have gotten me laughed out of the room. Swimming does not seem so far- fetched any more.’’
But there are legal questions to go with those about water quality and access.
On the legal front, fishable and swimmable were goals of the Clean Water Act. The fishing side has made tremendous gains.
‘‘ Swimmable is shorthand for ‘ support recreation in and on the water,’ ’’ Dexter said.
Paddling has been going on for years. Swimming is next, and it’s legally attainable.
As Dexter noted, though, ‘‘ Does the public have the right to swim in Illinois? Probably not.’’
Illinois having the most bizarre water- rights laws in the United States only complicates that.
Dexter said the public having a right to use the water is different than a landowner opening it up to swimming.
Then there is the beach license and requirements from the Illinois Department of Health.
In terms of water quality, it is good to go on most days.
‘‘ If you want to go swimming, just do it, but there are other dangers in the CAWS,’’ said David St. Pierre, the executive director of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago.
Such dangers include high banks, heavy boat traffic, undertows and sediment issues.
Otherwise, St. Pierre presented encouraging news on water quality.
The sticking point is people’s minds.
‘‘ The psychological battle is just as important as the scientific battle,’’ said Willie Levenson, the ringleader for the Human Access Project in Portland, Oregon.
That was key in his presentation on opening up the Willamette River to public swimming and water use.
Margaret Frisbie, the executive director of Friends of the Chicago River, said: ‘‘ The river is clean enough to recreate. . . . We need to change the public perspective.’’
Josina Morita, a commissioner for the water reclamation district, said many incisive things during the panel. The one that stuck was: ‘‘ My greatest fear is people seeing the river as a tool for gentrification.’’
That’s for another day.