Recommendation
Protect and enhance the integrity of aquatic systems

The integrity of the region’s aquatic resources refers to the chemical, physical, and biological quality of these systems to support both human and non-human use. Maintaining these systems' health is important not only for the health and well-being of communities and residents, but for the economic, ecological, and recreational values that they convey to the region, in monetary terms as well as the ecosystem services they provide. Lake Michigan is the single most significant water resource to the region as a whole, and is inseparable from its integration with the rest of the Great Lakes and the Chicago area’s system of rivers and streams. All of the region’s stakeholders play a pivotal role in managing the Lake's water quality and supply in partnership with other Great Lakes states and Canada. It is also important to note that the natural integrity of Lake Michigan's coastal environment is critical, not only for adjacent communities, but as nearshore and coastal habitat and a critical migratory flyway.

Photo essay

View a photo essay of the Chicago region's water resources and the challenges and opportunities they face.

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The need for clean, abundant, and reliable water resources tends to be taken for granted until shortages, flooding, or low water quality make the water unfit for its intended use. Though water quality, habitat, and ecological conditions have improved in parts of the region since adoption of the Clean Water Act, the majority of our aquatic, wetland, and riparian ecosystems remain in a poor to moderate state of health due to direct and indirect effects of development, transportation systems, dams, industrial and wastewater discharges, agriculture, and other impacts. Climate change will put additional stress on our water resource systems and infrastructure, as higher water temperatures, more variable and extreme precipitation, and drought cycles alter existing ecological conditions and make habitat inhospitable to native aquatic plants and animals, and more susceptible to non-native and invasive species. More broadly, recognizing that climate impacts on other parts of the nation and world are likely to drive population to the water-rich Great Lakes region, the region should begin to prepare today.

Our fragmented management of water systems reflects multiple agencies, each with its own separate mission and programs. In addition, other sectors such as public health, energy, agriculture, and transportation make policy decisions that influence water resource outcomes. Some water resource challenges can, in fact, result when an agency takes action in isolation without considering the interconnected nature of those resources. Cumulatively, individual development decisions -- including agricultural practices and the simple clearing of native riparian vegetation -- can have significant and lasting impacts on neighboring communities and downstream resources, including increased stormwater runoff and flooding, reduced water quality, and decreased drinking water quality and availability, which affect the health of the population. For example, the extent of impervious surfaces associated with urban development is highly correlated with the quality of a watershed’s streams and other resources. Due to this correlation, impervious surface area serves as an indicator of the biological health and physical integrity of surface waters.

Inadequate empirical data about the many factors influencing these resources' health necessitates the use of imperviousness as a proxy. The Watershed Integrity local strategy map, linked below, illustrates the region's percentage of impervious surface by watershed, while the Stream quality and development map, above, shows the location of higher-quality aquatic resources among those that have been assessed. Both maps demonstrate the impact of urban development on aquatic resources. It should be noted that only half of the region’s waters have been assessed, and other high quality streams are known to exist. Headwater streams make up a majority of stream miles in the region but have not been assessed, highlighting the need for additional data and monitoring. Most of the remaining higher quality aquatic systems are found in the collar counties, where imperviousness and riparian modifications remain low relative to the rest of the region, and where watershed conditions are more likely to support higher quality streams. Future development in those areas should strive to implement appropriate designs and development practices that protect and enhance these aquatic systems.

Local strategy map

Learn how watershed impervious surfaces affect aquatic systems, and the actions that can help restore them.

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Effective water resource management can address some of these challenges and improve the region’s natural assets. ON TO 2050 reaffirms the GO TO 2040 recommendation to integrate planning with water resource management, and suggests a conceptual goal of an integrated water resource framework for managing the region’s water assets. This framework requires both careful consideration of impacts and coordination among decision makers to protect ecosystem health and sustainability.

The region can advance integrated water resource management in a number of ways. Coordination among existing state and federal programs can identify cost-effective ways to maintain water and wastewater infrastructure while protecting natural assets. Watershed plans help identify cross-jurisdictional solutions and can be expanded beyond water quality goals to address additional water resource objectives. Watershed-based workgroups can bring together communities, agencies, and partners to address water quality resources through watershed monitoring and improvements. Local planning and development practices can ensure that redevelopment improves water quality and that new development not only minimizes impacts but also enhances natural resources with the right approach, standards, and design. Infrastructure decisions in particular can have lasting effects on the sustainable management of water systems, as described in greater detail below and in the other two water related strategies. Updating federal programs is a long-term goal, but the region and state can take more immediate actions to improve coordination and decision making that reflect the interconnected nature of water resources. The ON TO 2050 Water Resources strategy paper includes more details about the challenges to our water resources and how to address them.

The following subsection describes strategies and actions to implement this recommendation.

Improve water resource management and coordination

Institutional barriers, from the separation of different policy sectors to disconnected decision making across jurisdictions, hinder the region’s ability to sustainably manage water resources. As a result, water resources are often managed in isolation, missing opportunities for more cost-effective, integrated solutions.  At the local level, many communities have separate entities managing water supply, stormwater, and wastewater, each with its own governance structure and mission, with limited connection to land use and transportation planning functions. Additional details about shared services and intergovernmental coordination are in the Governance chapter.

There are many ways to improve efficiency, effectiveness, and coordination of efforts related to flood mitigation, wastewater, water quality, water supply, and aquatic habitats. Better data collection and analysis regarding the condition of our water resources are an important foundation for integrated water resource management and performance-based decision making based on scientific evidence. Updating federal programs is a long-term goal, but the region and state can take more immediate actions to improve coordination and decision making. State and local agencies are seeking such opportunities, including cross-jurisdictional efforts to advance the state’s Nutrient Loss Reduction Strategy to reduce nitrogen and phosphorous 45 percent by 2015, and new approaches to finance stormwater management projects, including updates to the State Revolving Fund. A comprehensive water planning agenda and funding program at the state level could improve coordination of water resource management efforts.

Incorporate water resource management into local planning

As the primary land use and development authorities in the region, municipalities and counties have significant responsibility to integrate water resource management considerations into planning efforts. The region can accommodate new households and jobs while protecting and enhancing water resources with a variety of best management techniques. Existing natural areas, open spaces, headwaters, high priority lakes and streams, aquifer recharge areas, and riparian zones can be protected through land use planning and land acquisition. To maintain and improve water resources, new development should protect natural drainage and hydrology, minimize the impact of impervious surfaces, and provide natural buffers along waterways and waterbodies. At the site-scale, county and municipal development ordinances can encourage or require the use of green infrastructure practices to minimize the impact of impervious surfaces, improve the quality, and reduce the volume of stormwater runoff. Infill and reinvestment in existing developed areas can actually improve water management in older neighborhoods by triggering the installation of stormwater best management practices (see the Improve natural resources through the redevelopment process recommendation.)

Create and implement multi-objective watershed plans

Improving the quality of our water resources requires a comprehensive approach to easing the stresses imposed by stormwater runoff, combined sewer overflows, wastewater and industrial discharges, and stream modifications such as dams. While watershed plans are an important mechanism for addressing water quality concerns, they typically lack the authority and funding to achieve significant water quality improvement. To date, the most successfully implemented watershed plans are the result of committed watershed groups that include municipal, county, state, and industry leaders collaborating on broad activities to advance water quality and other watershed goals. The DuPage River Salt Creek Working Group and the Fox River Study Group are models that should be extended throughout the region to invest in watershed restoration that addresses water quality concerns  Also, multiple objectives including open space protection, flood control, high-priority pollutants (chlorides and nutrients), and water supply protection can be addressed through watershed planning, and some of the region’s entities are already doing so, including implementation of the Nutrient Loss Reduction Strategy. Plan implementation requires a number of actions by watershed stakeholders, including open space protection, changes in development and transportation design, gray and green infrastructure investments, and operational changes to asset management practices.

Optimize water infrastructure investment

The region’s aging water infrastructure systems -- including drinking water, wastewater, and stormwater -- are in need of significant investment and modernization. Resource managers should consider an integrated water resource management framework that protects, conserves, and reuses water resources. Likewise, an integrated approach can help guide public and private investment to achieve multiple benefits, plan for appropriate growth, leverage multiple funding sources, and improve resilience. Some water managers, such as MWRD, recognize wastewater as a resource, making significant investments to recover nutrients and biosolids from waste streams, direct treated wastewater back into circulation for other uses, and capture excess heat and natural gas as a source of energy. Across the U.S., communities and industries are identifying uses of rainwater and graywater that can reduce both demands on drinking water and volumes of stormwater and wastewater.

In this era of limited resources, infrastructure investment must be strategic, multi-objective, performance-based, and connected to sound planning that upgrades, rehabilitates, and optimizes the use of existing system capacity. Reinvestment in existing infrastructure before expanding these systems is essential to reduce maintenance and replacement costs over the long term, and to create incentives for infill development that helps capture infrastructure costs. When expansion is considered, long-term asset management and maintenance costs should inform decision making, as described in the Incorporate market and fiscal feasibility into planning and development process recommendation of the Community chapter. In some cases, the best approach for managing the region’s infrastructure systems is to identify collaborative strategies for optimizing investments and efficiencies, including consolidation and service sharing arrangements.

The infrastructure and service recommendations of this Environment chapter and the Governance chapter include a number of crossover strategies. For example, Encourage partnerships and consolidation, Coordinate infrastructure operations and maintenance, and Develop tax policies that strengthen communities and the region.

Address the unique challenges of Lake Michigan and its tributaries

Lake Michigan and its interconnected system of lakes and tributaries -- the most significant water resources in our region -- face unique challenges. Our location on the Lake Michigan shoreline demands collective action to maintain and enhance the health of our region's main water source and help the state meets its commitments to national and international partners. IDNR should continue to strategically manage the Lake, which currently endures significant pollution from urban, agricultural, and industrial sources. Strategies for addressing these challenges include improving stormwater management, reducing combined sewer overflows, cleaning up polluted lands and harbors, and better managing industrial discharges to the Lake and its tributaries. Our state's nearshore and shoreline habitat exists entirely within the Chicago metropolitan region and is degraded, fragmented, and affected by dynamic lake levels and a changing shoreline, which can affect infrastructure, shipping, property, recreational resources, and sensitive ecosystems. Preventing the introduction of additional aquatic invasive species, which have already affected the Lake’s natural ecology and native species dynamics, should be a high priority. The region should be engaged in solutions that help protect the Great Lakes from Asian Carp and other such species while also maintaining the services currently provided by the Chicago area’s rivers and streams including the Chicago and Calumet Rivers, and the North Shore, Cal-Sag, and Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canals. The "Our Great Rivers" initiative is intended to focus attention and investment on improving these legacy resources, and the Great Lakes and Mississippi River Interbasin Study focused on the interaction between these water systems, should be implemented.