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is a notable and important river throughout Illinois and its history. It could be looked at as the first factor to making Chicago a central city in the US. The river was able to serve as a link to the Great Lakes, the Mississippi Valley, and other parts of the country. One area the river runs through is Middlefork Savannah in Lake Forest, Illinois. Fortunately for us, this area was the perfect, close location to study the river and its water quality.
The Chicago River
Middlefork Savannah is a well known forest preserve and savannah in the north shore area. A large stream of the river passes by through it. In this area, the river is very shallow, straight, and narrow. It is surrounded by vegetation, grassland, and trails. In the season when plants and flowers are thriving, several species of flowers line the river, creating a spectacular view. It is banked because the grass area to its sides are on a slant. On a clear sunny day, one could probably see several fish or frogs swimming through it. It also known as a home to several species of turtles. There is a brown bridge that resides on top of the river where visitors can stand and look out at the environment.
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A watershed is all of the land that drains into a particular body of water. The Chicago River watershed is very large due to the fact it covers a lot of land since it is over 150 miles long and runs through the upper, northern area of Illinois. Surrounding the land is a variety of towns and cities that are very populous. The river has a north, central, and south branch. The north branch consists of northern suburbs, towns such as Waukegan, Lake Forest, Highland Park, and several others. The central branch is the river in the city of Chicago. The south branch mainly goes through the southern part of the Chicago. It is not as stretched out as the northern branch.
Early on, the river had a variety of channels that were cut through it to allow access to other areas. Canals were also added to link the river to other important bodies of water to increase transportation and shipping coming through it.
In the 1800s, the Chicago River had many problems regarding sanitation and pollution. It received a large amount of waste from humans and was considered a very unsafe river. The water would sometimes enter other rivers through the canals and contaminate those rivers also. The public was very furious about this. As a result, in 1900, the Sanitary District of Chicago completely reversed the flow of the river, causing it to drain in the newly created Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal. This prevented the river from spreading its pollution and sewage. Throughout the 1900s, the river was still known for being extremely dirty, trashy, and stinky. However, it underwent extreme cleaning in the 1990s because the mayor decided to finally make a change to its rough reputation.
The purpose of our study was to determine the quality of the water of this area of the Chicago River. We wanted to see how much the location of this area would affect the river. We performed a variety of tests to determine the overall quality. The quality of the water would also determine which species resided in the river and how they were able to thrive.
In order to test for water quality, we tested for temperature change, dissolved oxygen, BOD, pH, phosphates, nitrates, turbidity and total solids, fecal coliform bacteria, and benthic macroinvertebrates. Most of these were performed by obtaining samples of the water and using kits to examine the numbers these tests produced to determine water quality. We went on a field trip with our class to Middlefork Savannah. We went to a nearby bridge and went into the water to obtain our samples.
Our findings revealed that the quality of the water is very mediocre. For several of our tests, we obtained terrific numbers in terms of water quality. In order to determine the quality of the water in terms of our tests, they were converted to a Q value. The Q value represents the overall quality of the water.
Our overall Q value after all of our tests was 65/100. This gives us a rating of medium quality. The water was neither excellent for organisms to thrive nor terrible for nothing to be able to survive.
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