Conscious Choice: Water Ways and Means

March 2006

Water Ways and Means

Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago hopeful Debra Shore says too much of the region’s water is literally going down the drain

By Peter Bernard

Skokie resident Debra Shore believes that one of the keys to preserving Chicago’s fresh water resources begins at home. Shore is running against nine other candidates for three seats on the nine-member Metropolitan Water District board in the March 21 Democratic primary. The local agency, which is responsible for wastewater treatment and stormwater management, employs about 2,100 people and handles about 1.4 billion gallons of waste water per day. Shore estimates its 2006 budget will be approximately $1 billion.

She is campaigning hard for the office, something seldom done for a position where success is often determined by one’s placement on the ballot. Currently on leave from her job as editor of Chicago Wilderness magazine, Shore has received a coveted endorsement from the Sierra Club, something the group rarely bestows. Shore, a Democrat with some decidedly green ideas, may seem unconventional to some, but to her it’s just plain common sense to use natural systems of regeneration.

“Hurricane Katrina taught us that you can’t engineer your way out of everything,” she said.

She said homeowners can play a larger role in controlling floods and conserving water.

“About four years ago, we were working with a landscaper at my home, which has a pretty big asphalt driveway,” she said. “We wanted to rip up the asphalt and replace it with gravel for aesthetic reasons — and also to create a permeable surface that would allow rainwater to filter into the ground instead of mixing with salt, oil and other contaminants before winding up in the sewer.”

Shore calculated her gravel driveway would have prevented up to 10,000 gallons of water a year from running into the sewer. It would have cost only a little more than an asphalt one.

But the north suburb’s zoning laws didn’t allow gravel driveways — only asphalt, concrete or paving bricks. Skokie officials eventually approved Shore’s proposal on a zoning variance but, to her disappointment, did not change the basic ordinance that would allow others to have gravel driveways as well.

She doesn’t have a gravel driveway yet, because “the system we wanted to use had some problems.” However, she eventually plans to install a different gravel system and will be “ripping up the driveway soon.”

As it does in most other parts of the Chicago area, storm water falling on Shore’s property runs into the sewers, is processed in a treatment plant, and released into a series of rivers and canals, eventually draining into the Mississippi River.

“Then it just flows downstream and eventually becomes New Orleans’ problem,” Shore said. “I just think managing our water resources should be more efficient and sustainable … We collect a billion-and-a-half gallons of water from Lake Michigan every year, and we return virtually none of it.”

She approves of the City of Chicago’s plan to put a green roof on McCormick Place, which will keep about 50 million gallons of water a year from running into the sewer.

Other things homeowners, businesses and government agencies can do to keep water from running into the sewers include installing cisterns (rain barrels) and rain gardens.

Shore was born in Chicago, but when she was an infant her family moved to Dallas, where she was raised. She moved back to the Chicago area as an adult in 1982. She said her interest in the area’s environment began in the early 1990s, when she worked as a volunteer for the Cook County Forest Preserve.

“I was cutting back undergrowth and pulling weeds, and I developed a strong interest in environmental advocacy and conservation,” she said.

The water district was formed in the late 1800s and is primarily known as the agency that reversed the flow of the Chicago River, after severe flooding pushed untreated wastewater into Lake Michigan to the intakes for the city’s drinking water. After the flow of the river was reversed, treated water was taken away from the lake. Continuing development in the 1950s and ‘60s soon taxed this system, and in the 1970s the district started work on Deep Tunnel, a system of underground tunnels and reservoirs that catches and holds excess storm water until it can be treated. The project started in 1977 and is still under construction.

If Shore is elected to the water district, she hopes to push for incentive programs and partnerships with municipalities, homeowners and real estate developers.

“Conserving fresh water supplies is quickly becoming a global issue, and the Great Lakes hold 20 percent of the world’s surface fresh water,” Shore said. “In the future, the eyes of the world will be on the Great Lakes cities to see what we’re doing to conserve water.”

Peter Bernard is a Chicago-area writer.

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