WBEZ 91.5 Chicago

One hundred years after a small volunteer group set aside open spaces for the nation’s first Forest Preserve, the Forest Preserve District of Cook County is redoubling its efforts to promote preservation and recreation across more than 100 square miles.

The District’s centennial anniversary campaign officially began Wednesday with a minor name change (though still legally The Forest Preserve District of Cook County, the redesigned logo carries the admittedly less clunky Forest Preserves of Cook County) and a reiteration of the Forest Preserves’ vision for conservation, habitat restoration and trails.

New master plans in each of those areas — as well as camping, recreation and

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Amid a warbling Lowery organ rendition of “Build Me Up Buttercup” blasting from pre-game Wrigley Field, environmental groups gathered outside Wrigley View Rooftop to make their voices heard on pending fracking regulations.

The targets of their signs and chants were state governors in town for the Democratic Governors Association, meeting this week in Chicago. In addition to Gov. Pat Quinn, whose signature is expected soon on a regulatory bill passed recently by the state legislature, protestors watched for Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley and California Gov.

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The honey locust trees that span North St. Clair Street next to downtown’s NBC tower may owe some of their girth to a 2,000-year-old agricultural practice from the Amazon.

In 2011 landscape architect Bernie Jacobs of Jacobs/Ryan Associates, the site’s designers, had recently learned about biochar — a rich, charcoal-black fertilizer made by pyrolysis, or burning without oxygen. Deep in the heart of a burning brush pile, for example, extreme heat separates organic matter into liquids, gas and a solid called biochar. Because there is no oxygen, however, the process creates no carbon dioxide. Instead, biochar traps carbon.

“It seemed like a beautifully ecological and non-chemical fertilizer,” Jacobs said.

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Potential buyers for Midwest Generation’s defunct coal plant sites on the city’s southwest side could come before a Mayor-appointed task force soon.

At a meeting in Pilsen Wednesday, Jerry Mead-Lucero, who heads the Pilsen Environmental Rights and Reform Organization (PERRO), said the group’s original plans for a park (pictured below) that would span South Throop and Halsted Streets with a riverwalk were beginning to seem unlikely.

The former parking lot, outlined in blue above, will be retained by the future owner. The new owner’s identity is still up for grabs, but Mead-Lucero said to his knowledge it’s down from dozens of interested buyers to just two developers.

Instead Midwest Generation offered a parcel behind Chitown Futbol on South Throop Street, which could foster a smaller riverwalk west of the Fisk site.

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Rust, population loss and billions of gallons of sewage overflows — Cincinnati’s South Fairmount neighborhood can now count at least one of these former challenges as an economic opportunity.

A plan to repurpose about 30 acres of brownfields and vacant lots into one of the nation’s boldest experiments in green infrastructure won the approval of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Monday.

It is an innovative solution to a common problem throughout the Midwest, where many cities, including Chicago, have combined sewer systems that collect stormwater runoff and sewage in the same pipe.

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In the perennial battle to keep Asian carp and other riverborne invaders out of the Great Lakes, one intervention is often proposed as the only long-term solution: separate the Mississippi River and Great Lakes watersheds.

Or, put another way: restore the divide that existed until engineers reversed the flow of the Chicago River during the 19th century, a feat that earned Chicago its can-do reputation and paved the way for the city’s explosive growth.

Gov.

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The asthma hospitalization rate in Chicago remains significantly higher than the national average. While the origins of the disease remain elusive, mounting evidence has made its risk factors more clear, and Chicago has somewhat of a perfect storm for asthma problems.

Part of the city’s above-average rate is demographic. Minorities have a higher prevalence of asthma. Puerto Ricans, even when sharing the same environmental conditions as other ethnic groups, suffer higher asthma rates. African-Americans, too, are significantly more likely to have asthma than non-Hispanic Whites, according to the U.S.

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