'Water district breaks ground on $400 million Skokie plant upgrade to cut phosphorus,' Evanston RoundTable

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It's not every day that area officials gather to celebrate an infrastructure project that could have ramifications as far away as the Gulf of Mexico.

That was indeed the case on Oct. 8, as state and local leaders, including Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss and Skokie Mayor Ann Tennes, joined in a groundbreaking ceremony at the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Chicago's water reclamation plant in Skokie to launch a nearly $400 million project to improve water quality.

"Battery E," as it is known, will involve adding new tanks, infrastructure, equipment and other process improvements over four years on the southwest side of the O'Brien Water Reclamation Plant at 3500 Howard St. in Skokie. The plant is responsible for treating wastewater from Evanston and other surrounding communities and returning it to the North Shore Channel as clean water.

The project's special focus is to remove excess phosphorus that collects from various sources like fertilizers and urban runoff. Even drinking water facilities use phosphorus to prevent corrosion in pipes, district officials said.

Excess phosphorus saps oxygen and can cause algae to grow. It's considered a major culprit in one of the largest aquatic "dead zones" (about the size of New Jersey) in the world in the Gulf of Mexico. The Chicago River, a major source of phosphorus, and other Chicago area waters eventually flow into the Gulf of Mexico.

Kicking off the groundbreaking ceremony, water district President Kari K. Steele said the plan, which ranks as one of the largest investments the district has made for a single project in its 137-year history, reminds us "that we are all tied together by water. The water that flows down our drains eventually comes here or to one of our other six water reclamation plants before it is cleaned and then sent downstream."

"Phosphorus is essential to life," she said, "but too much phosphorus, as most of us know, especially in the maintenance and operations [end], can fuel excessive algae growth, reduce oxygen levels and harm aquatic ecosystems. And this impact on water quality can impact downstream North Shore Channel, to the North Branch of the Chicago River, all the way south to the Des Plaines River and the Mississippi River" - eventually to the Gulf, she said.

Battery E will include a new aeration tank, final settling tanks and supporting structures and equipment, according to Steele. It will help the O'Brien plant meet new phosphorus discharge limits that will go into effect by 2030. Beyond that, "by adding a new battery, we are creating the capacity and flexibility to modernize this facility and extend its ability to serve the region for another century," Steele said.

The district's project represents a "really critical investment," said Biss, another speaker at the ceremony.

"We are operating in a changing environment … an environment where pollutants and contaminants have entered the water," he said, noting how climate conditions are changing. "We are here today to celebrate the fact that the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District is rising to meet that challenge and ensuring that the systems that we have in place for this next century, in a facility that has existed since long before many of the factors came into play, will be able to meet those changing conditions."

A 45% target

To shrink the "dead zone" of oxygen-depleted water in the Gulf of Mexico, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is working with a task force to reduce the amount of nitrogen and phosphorus entering the Mississippi River basin by 45% by 2035.

While the overarching 45% target is a policy strategy rather than a direct federal law, the agency said on its website, the EPA and state agencies can enforce that goal through legal mechanisms under the Clean Water Act.

The water district, for its part, is estimating that the nutrient-reducing technologies it is implementing at its three largest plants, including O'Brien, will achieve 20% of the state's reduction goal.

Commissioner Cameron Davis, an Evanston resident who coordinated the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative under the Obama administration, was among those at the Oct. 8 ceremony.

"This isn't just some big piece of equipment," Davis said in a statement after the ceremony. Rather, "it's a big investment in the health of our waterways, jobs and helping our downstream neighbors."

Nutrients find their way into the waters through three major sources, the Sierra Club Illinois Chapter said in a report on its website. According to the Sierra Club, studies estimate that 48% of the phosphorus and 16% of the nitrogen in Illinois rivers come from sewage effluent.

An equal amount of the phosphorus comes via direct runoff from soils enriched with fertilizers and animal manure, the studies reported.