WBEZ | Water

Calumet brain trust tackles environmental issues across state line

Thu, 16 May 2013 18:24:00 -0500

Although county lines parcel out the southern shore of Lake Michigan like garden plots, the environmental issues that unify people from Michigan City, Ind. to Chicago do not respect political boundaries.

Nor do most economic issues. Industrial decay and depopulation have left communities throughout the greater Calumet region with some common problems, as well as shared opportunities.

That was the message from the inaugural Calumet Summit, a conference convened this week in Gary, Indiana’s lakefront Marquette Park by the Calumet Stewardship Initiative.

The summit follows some major moves in the Calumet area, not least of which is the Millennium Reserve initiative, dubbed the nation's largest "open space" project. (Although it might better be described as a regional plan that ties conservation to urban redevelopment.)

After 140 years of heavy industry, many of the region’s factories have closed and left brownfields, violence and unemployment in their wake. And while efforts to rehabilitate the Great Lakes have mopped up some pollution and begun to clamp down on invasive species, a report released Tuesday by the international body that advises Canada and U.S. on the lakes said the area still faces serious challenges. Agricultural runoff, flooding, drought, and the march of both invasive species and a changing climate are among the problems that plague people who call the southern end of Lake Michigan home.

Joel Brammeier, president and CEO of the Alliance for the Great Lakes, said as much Tuesday at the Calumet Summit. The Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, a federal funding program initiated by President Barack Obama’s administration, has enabled environmental work and research in recent years. Perhaps more importantly, Brammeier said, it has brought attention to the region and galvanized those already doing important work on the ground.

"As important as the money is the near-universal expression of support for the program year after year," he said. "That’s really at the heart of the success in moving money to entities on the ground."

Volunteer environmental stewards and planners alike see a future in green development.

Few people articulate that vision better than Lauren Riga. Tapped by Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson to head Gary’s new department of Green Urbanism, 28-year-old Riga previously served as a U.N. delegate at the 2010 climate change conference. About one quarter of Gary's buildings are vacant. As Riga and the mayor look to spur an economic revival, they plan to incorporate green infrastructure into new development. Meanwhile local and state agencies have helped rehabilitate habitat along the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, home to a series of fragile ecosystems known as pannes — wetlands nestled between sand dunes.

"[Riga] represents a new way of thinking for the region," said Andrew Pelloso, an environmental consultant who formerly worked for Indiana’s Department of Environmental Management.

"Everyone seems to see the region by Gary’s fate and fortune so what they do matters," he said.

Whether updating Northwest Indiana's stormwater infrastructure or retrofitting Chicago schoolyards, presenters at the summit emphasized action.

"Between now and the next summit go out and do something," U.S. Rep. Peter Visclosky told the audience, "or everyone will have wasted their time over the two days."

Pelloso said for all the region’s challenges, and the bureaucratic headache it can be to get things done, the conference’s take-home message was affirming.

"We’re bound together by a common resource,” he said. “Not by state lines.”

Chris Bentley writes about environmental issues. Follow him on Twitter at @Cementley.

Report: Drop money in the river, watch it float back

Thu, 09 May 2013 15:57:00 -0500

The glitzy towers of downtown Chicago are filled with offices that boast impressive financial returns, but their biggest cash flow may be one they all share: the Chicago River.

A new report commissioned by Friends of the Chicago River and Openlands says each dollar invested in the river provides a 70 percent return. Completed, planned and proposed improvement projects, the report says, amount to 846 new permanent jobs, 52,400 construction jobs and $130.54 million every year.

“Investing in the Chicago River pays us back,” said Lenore Beyer-Clow, policy director for Openlands.

Friends of the Chicago River, which began as a project of Openlands, has championed the once neglected river since it was a “back alleyway full of sewage and trash,” in the words of the new report. Mayors Richard M. Daley and Rahm Emanuel have both called attention to the resource, most recently when Emanuel announced a plan to expand the city’s Riverwalk by six blocks. But Margaret Frisbie, the group’s executive director, said despite recent progress most people still don’t appreciate the full benefits of investing in the river.

The report looked at four major completed or planned projects involving the river over the last 30 years: the deep tunnel stormwater project TARP; disinfection of wastewater at three area treatment plants; $500 million worth of green infrastructure investment citywide over 15 years; and $93 million in projects by the City of Chicago and Chicago Park District.

The benefits came in the form of additional business income, tax revenue and jobs, but also avoided flood damage and sewage treatment costs. Investing in the river boots property values along its shores, too.

Wolf Point and River Point are among the high-profile riverside developments in the portfolio of real estate firm Hines Interests.

“Why are we focused on real estate along the river?” asked Greg Van Schaak, senior managing director for Hines. “It’s very simple: it’s more valuable.” Van Schaak said whereas rent in most towers varies by floor, buildings along the river retain the same value from the first floor through the fiftieth.

Van Schaak added that most of the major companies — Boeing, MillerCoors, BP — who recently opened offices in Chicago did so in riverfront buildings. “I don’t think that’s an accident,” he said.

Money talks, but it’s impossible to neatly quantify many of the benefits that natural systems provide. That may make it difficult to invest strategically even when all parties agree on the overarching value of a natural resource like the Chicago River.

“There are all these ancillary benefits to green infrastructure that aren’t quantified when you only look at economic returns,” said Debra Shore, an MWRD commissioner. Environmental benefits like carbon sequestration, soil retention and fresh air are valuable too, Shore said, but don’t yet appear on the ledger of an economic analysis.

Chicago Conservation Corps cultivates environmental leaders

Tue, 07 May 2013 16:15:00 -0500

The White House Council on Environmental Quality honored 12 teachers with a Presidential Award for environmental education Tuesday, but in Chicago a band of green-minded volunteers added more than 700 new students and teachers to an environmental organization present in every one of the city's 50 wards.

The Chicago Conservation Corps' student program has graduated roughly 6,500 students and teachers who have devoted some 150,000 hours of service since the program begin in 2006. Partner organizations can team up with the group for environmental service projects, drawing on volunteers from the general public as well as adults who have undergone environmental leadership training.

The program comes with some ready-made projects, like making household cleaning products from non-toxic ingredients and distributing home weatherization kits to promote energy efficiency. New clubs start by auditing their trash, food waste and leaky faucets — their leak-finding program reportedly saved 1.5 million gallons last year.

But many schools develop their own curricula. Students at North Lawndale College Prep, for example, filmed a video about the dangers of radon poisoning.

“These are the movers and shakers of your age group,” the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum’s Kristen Pratt, who coordinates the Conservation Corps program, told the graduating students assembled Tuesday, “who are really making a difference.”

John Hancock High School, located in the southwest side West Elsdon neighborhood, has been running Conservation Corps programs since 2006. Erin Niedt, who teaches at Hancock, says her students get a sense of pride from seeing the impact of their actions. This year her class handed out dozens of weatherization kits and spent Saturday mornings cleaning up Ottawa Trail Woods.

“They made a visual difference,” Niedt says. “They could see what a difference they made.”

There are no shortage of ways to pursue a “green” lifestyle, and environmental education initiatives, like Chicago's Mighty Acorns program, are going strong in Chicago even after the city dissolved its environment department into other city agencies. But many have criticized the comparatively small-bore progress of personal action in light of the daunting task of transitioning to a sustainable industrial society before the impacts of climate change become too great. True, shorter showers and recycled goods won’t supplant our fossil fuel dependency, but education builds momentum for grassroots actions that can have far-reaching effects.

“We’re building a culture,” Pratt says. “What’s most exciting isn’t even the collective impact of the individual projects, although we do tally them up and it makes a difference. The most exciting part is building awareness.”

Pratt, who grew up in the West Lawn neighborhood, says she’s living proof of the lifelong impact of an early introduction to environmentalism. A graduate of the Career Ladder for Youth program run by the Chicago Zoological Society and the Brookfield Zoo, she went on to earn a degree in zoology from Michigan State University. Though the science itself was interesting, she says her favorite part was sharing what she learned.

Chris Bentley writes about the environment. Follow him on Twitter at @Cementley.

EPA rolls back methane emissions from natural gas

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 21:25:00 -0500

In a revision to its sweeping inventory of the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions, the Environmental Protection Agency scaled back its estimate for natural gas, stoking supporters’ claims that the fossil fuel could be a viable carbon reduction strategy in the short-term.

But those pushing for a ban of the controversial technique of high-volume hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, say the data are still unclear and that EPA’s revision doesn’t change the big picture.

The Illinois legislature is at a crossroads on fracking as members prepare to vote on bills that would either regulate the process or ban it entirely for at least two years.

Natural gas is mostly methane, a greenhouse gas 21 times more potent than carbon dioxide, according to EPA standards. Mining and distributing the gas involves some leakage, but the amount that escapes is a point of contention. Supporters contend if methane leakage is contained, the fossil fuel burns about twice as clean as coal. Some say it could serve as a bridge to an electricity grid dominated by renewable energy.

Using new data largely reported by oil and gas industry groups, EPA’s report lowered its estimate of methane emissions from natural gas between 1990 and 2010 by about 20 percent.

Previous studies, however, have calculated figures that appear to torpedo its viability as a comparatively low-carbon fuel. The EPA’s latest inventory comes ahead of work from NOAA scientists and the University of Texas at Austin studying natural gas emissions on a national scale. Their results are expected within a year.

Most of the data currently used to estimate methane leakage don’t come from field tests done at real wells, which has led some to question their worth. Hugh MacMillan, a senior researcher with Food and Water Watch, says EPA raised its estimate of 2010 emissions from fracking itself at the same time that it drastically lowered emissions from another part of the process.

"EPA is making large changes in how it’s arriving at these estimates, and that means there remain large uncertainties," MacMillan said.

Food and Water Watch, like many environmental groups, supports an outright ban on fracking.

A 2011 study by the Center for Atmospheric Research found methane leakage would have to be below 2 percent to beat coal when it comes to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Using EPA’s 2013 and 2012 data to calculate methane leakage, a new report from the World Resources Institute found the recently revised numbers produced a leakage rate roughly one third lower than the agency’s previous estimate — a figure below that 2 percent threshold.

Even if the lower methane figures prove true, MacMillan is against fracking.

"'Better than coal' is not an acceptable measure," he said. "We need to do more to fight climate change."

System failures can have effects beyond accelerating global warming. Cement well casings cracked in Dimock, Penn., where methane contaminated some nearby wells, according to the state government.

And while aquifers are separated from gas wells by thousands of feet of rock, environmentalists worry small fissures in the cement could over time cause failures and foul drinking water. During fracking, large volumes of water flow back to the surface along with the freed oil or gas, and they are laced with naturally radioactive minerals and proprietary chemicals.

Industry experts counter that wasted gas is wasted product, and that new technology will continue to tamp down leakage.

In March, Illinois legislators moved toward a vote on a regulatory bill called the Hydraulic Fracturing Regulation Act. It would set up regulations and permitting for fracking.

Negotiations over the regulatory bill hit a snag when oil and gas companies objected to natural resource extraction fees and a surprise amendment that would create a licensing board. It would require energy companies to hire a state-licensed water well driller in order to be licensed for high-volume fracking in Illinois.

Lawmakers could also back moratorium bills in the state house and senate, which call for a two-year ban on fracking so scientists and regulators have more time to study and prepare for the industry explosion that’s likely to take place.

Fracking and horizontal drilling in general are old technologies, but recent advances have allowed them to be used together and on large scales. There are already about 500,000 acres leased mainly in Wayne, Hamilton and Saline counties in southeastern Illinois. The right conditions could go as far north as Jasper and Effingham counties. Fracking grew in the U.S. by at least 48 percent per year in the last five years, according to the Energy Information Administration.

Chris Bentley writes about the environment. Follow him on Twitter at @Cementley.

Pill round-up: MWRD wants your unused medication

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 17:21:00 -0500

Valium, adderall, warfarin — if it’s common medication in the general population, it’s a common water contaminant. Pharmaceutical products routinely enter the ecosystem, altering the behavior of fish and tainting the drinking water supplies of 40 million Americans.

To help cut back on that contamination, The Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago (MWRD) is participating in a national drug “take-back” event, inviting Chicagoans to anonymously dispose of their unused and unwanted medication.

MWRD has participated in all five national drug collection events, which are organized nationally by the Drug Enforcement Administration. For the first time, MWRD will weigh Saturday’s haul to assess the program’s reach.

Spring prescription drug collection date set for April 27; three drop-off sites at MWRD facilities. twitter.com/MWRDGC/status/…
— MWRD (@MWRDGC) February 28, 2013

Drugs still make their way into our water, said Thomas Granato of MWRD’s monitoring and research division, once they’ve passed through the body. But destroying unused medication eliminates a preventable source of the pollution.

Granato said it’s not currently possible for the District to remove pharmceutical contaminants from wastewater once they’ve made it out into the environment. MWRD hands the medication they collect over to police, who have it incinerated.

Collection will be at the main gate of MWRD’s three treatment facilities, from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m.

O’Brien Water Reclamation Plant, 3500 Howard Street, Skokie, Ill.
Stickney Water Reclamation Plant, 6001 W. Pershing Rd., Cicero, Ill.
Calumet Water Reclamation Plant, 400 E. 130^th St., Chicago.

Botanic Garden gets over-watered by storms and is saved by plants, Army

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 23:34:00 -0500

Chicago's "garden on the water" got over-watered last week.

With more than six miles of shoreline, the Chicago Botanic Garden offers an idyllic green scenery along a waterfront. But when last week's inundation sent the garden’s lake levels soaring by more than five feet, the scene looked more like a swamp. And it was the actions of native plants – and the U.S. Army – that saved it.

The rising water swallowed stone lanterns on the shores of the Japanese Garden. In the past, such flooding would have sucked soil away from the garden’s shorelines. Thanks to an aggressive perennial plant initiative that has tied up lakefront soil with native plant roots, however, many areas of the garden weathered the storm with ease.

“Within a few weeks you won’t even know anything ever happened,” said Bob Kirschner, director of restoration ecology at the Botanic Garden. Water levels should return to normal by Sunday night, he said, more than 10 days after the lakes began to rise.

In 2012 the Army Corps of Engineers helped the Garden flatten out its sloping shores, which had been made steeper by years of erosion. Like many landscaped lakefronts and urban waterways, the Garden once had turf grass right down to the water’s edge. When turf grass goes underwater for days on end, it dies. Then the waves washing against that edge start to erode the soil. That process feeds upon itself, chipping away at the earth until you are left with vertical banks.

Over the past 13 years they have planted more than 450,000 native plants representing hundreds of species. Plants like riverbank sedge and blue flag iris were selected for their ability to survive extended flooding. While conventional flood control infrastructure like sheet piling and stone riprap can help forestall erosion, it can also create “biological deserts,” Kirschner said, by isolating what might otherwise be a thriving ecosystem where land slopes gently into shallow waters.

“Native plants don’t change the volume of the water we store here,” Kirschner explained, “but they change the resiliency of the ecosystem so it can recover.”

Native plants aren’t just for botanic gardens and ecologists. The Skokie River frequently spills over into the Garden, but not before running through 20 miles of north suburban development. If small landowners took an ecological approach to their backyard landscaping, they could have a significant impact on the river’s flashiness.

“Your friends and neighbors upriver largely control your destiny,” Kirschner said, “but you’re controlling the destinies of people downriver from you.”

Of course native plants have their limits, too. Climate change will likely intensify precipitation extremes, leading to more severe floods and droughts. But the Botanic Garden’s native plants survived even worse floods in 2008, and didn’t need any water during last summer’s drought.

Chris Bentley writes about environmental issues. Follow him on Twitter at @Cementley.

Heavy rain overwhelms combined sewer system

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 16:17:00 -0500

Inundated by nearly 5 inches of rain in less than 36 hours, Chicago water officials have had to "re-reverse" the flow of the Chicago River, opening the large gates that separate Lake Michigan from the river to relieve pressure on a sewer system swollen with runoff and waste.

As Chicago Magazine’s Whet Moser reported, the deluge has easily outpaced recent upgrades to the city's water and sewage infrastructure. Michael Hawthorne of the Chicago Tribune reported in 2011 that Lake Michigan had been hit with more sewage in recent years than the previous two decades combined.

The Metropolitan Wastewater Reclamation District said Thursday that its 109-mile network of tunnels and reservoirs was 100 percent full. The Mainstream Tunnel was full by 12:31 a.m., while the Des Plaines Tunnel filled up at 3:30 a.m. Built to contain 2.3 billion gallons, the system hit capacity and poured enough stormwater and sewage into Chicago-area waterways to help raise their levels higher than Lake Michigan. Following protocol, MWRD tried to relieve some of that pressure by dumping the tainted water into the lake.

Contaminants can spread kilometers away from shore. MWRD has asked residents to minimize their water use to help ease the strain on the heavily burdened system. Not that it's a great day for a swim, anyway, but you might not want to hit the beach, either.

Chicago’s sewer problems may be stark, but they are not unique. A 2004 EPA report to Congress found Chicago’s overflows plagued mainly by bacteria, while the city of Toledo, Ohio suffered pollution from copper, lead, silver and zinc. Water samples taken near Toledo's sewer outfalls showed effects of chronic toxicity. A 2010 study by the National Wildlife Federation found cities around the Great Lakes discharged 41 billion gallons of untreated sewage and stormwater into the lakes in 2009, with Chicago and Detroit leading the way.

There has been some progress. Detroit has decreased sewer overflows by 80 percent below 1995 levels by adding capacity, but had to back off its own deep tunnel project in 2009 due to lack of funding.

Chicago’s waterways have cleared up, too, but face a murky future. The total number of fish species found in the Chicago and Calumet river system increased six-fold between 1974, around the time that MWRD upgraded their facilities, and 2001. But the Deep Tunnel project originally meant to help the system avoid overflows won’t be complete until 2029, and may still be inadequate in the face of floods pumped up by climate change.

Midwest breweries lead environmental group's charge to fortify water laws

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 12:09:00 -0500

Raise a cold one this weekend and make a toast to the Clean Water Act.

That’s the advice of the Natural Resources Defense Council as they team up with 21 craft breweries in an effort to raise awareness of threats to the key ingredient in beer.

As any beginning homebrewer’s kitchen floor will attest, the brewing process requires a lot of water. Beer is 90 percent water, and including all the water it takes to clean brewing materials and rinse the packaged product, it can take 7 gallons of water to produce one gallon of beer.

“When you talk about beer, you have to talk about water. It’s not as sexy as talking about hops and malt,” said Jason Spaulding, co-owner of Brewery Vivant in Grand Rapids, Mich. “If we don’t look after [our water] long-term, it’s going to directly hurt our industry and our livelihood.”

Congress passed the Clean Water Act in 1972, following a series of high-profile pollution incidents including the Cuyahoga River fire of 1969. Citing recent congressional attempts to tinker with the law or erode the Environmental Protection Agency's authority to enforce clean water provisions, NRDC’s senior policy analyst Karen Hobbs said the coalition of brewers isn’t united for or against any particular policy proposal.

“We're hoping to work with the brewers to have a consistent industry voice in support of clean water,” Hobbs said. “Some brewers will want to enter into specific policy issues.”

Two supreme court decisions in 2001 and 2006 questioned the EPA’s jurisdiction to enforce the Clean Water Act. The agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers are waiting for clarification from the Obama administration before they enter into legal battles over water pollution where the legal definition of what waters are covered in the act is unclear. In Arizona, for example, storm water containing grease and oil from nearby construction sites pours into the San Pedro River for only part of the year. Since the tributaries carrying pollution do not flow year-round, the EPA dropped its enforcement efforts there to avoid a long and costly legal battle.

The bottom line for the nation’s craft brewers and their customers, however, is straightforward.

“If your water’s not good, your beer’s not going to be good,” Spaulding said.

Goose Island uses more than 18 million gallons of water each year, racking up a hefty water bill. Some large water users negotiate for a flat monthly fee for water, but many craft breweries, including Goose Island, pay a monthly rate based on how much water they actually use. Like any ratepayer in Chicago, Goose Island gets their water from Lake Michigan.

“Lake Michigan water has a really great chemical content to it to use as your blank canvas,” said Goose Island’s Ian Hughes.

Like many breweries, Goose Island is pursuing water conservation efforts, reusing water that rinses beer bottles after they’ve been filled and commissioning a life-cycle assessment of their product's environmental footprint.

Despite some recent rate hikes, water in the Great Lakes region is among the cheapest in the country. Even where rates are higher, many argue they don't reflect the true cost of water. If ensuring clean water costs more, Brewery Vivant’s Spaulding said he is prepared to pay.

“That’s a cost we’d be happy to pay,” he said. “Without that clean water you don’t have a viable business.”

Asian carp might have entered lakes, but so what?

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 05:00:00 -0500

New evidence suggesting Asian carp may already be in the Great Lakes basin has renewed fears that the invasive species could pose an existential threat to the area’s lucrative fishing industry.

“The fact that fish may already be in the lake does not mean it’s game over,” said Lindsay Chadderton, aquatic invasive species director for The Nature Conservancy. “The real risk is that if we continue to debate and don’t act, we may lose that opportunity.”

But the charismatic fish, infamous for their tendency to leap out of the water (though they're unlikely to do so in the deep waters of Lake Michigan), are no shoe-in when it comes to colonizing the Great Lakes.

“In my view, the Mississippi River basin is the least of Lake Michigan's worries, because the habitat is so warm, rich and shallow that its denizens would be completely unfit in cold, dilute, deep Lake Michigan,” said Russell Cuhel, a senior scientist with the Great Lakes WATER Institute. To reproduce, carp need access to rivers where there is an amply flowing water column to help disperse their eggs. That isn’t common in most of the Great Lakes, but some places, including Lake Erie and the Detroit River, could provide the right conditions.

The sea lamprey, another invasive species that decimated the Lake Trout population, shares an Achilles heel with Asian carp. Like the carp, lamprey head upstream to breed. To control their spread, the Great Lakes Fishery Commission applies specialized poisons that kill young lampreys in streambeds before they reach open water and mature. It’s possible that if carp do establish themselves in the Great Lakes, a similar strategy could control their population. But it’s no sure bet.

“Invasive species never do what we expect them to do,” Chadderton said. “They’re opportunistic. That’s why they’re good invaders.”

At any rate the jury is still out on whether carp could flourish in the unfamiliar Great Lakes ecosystem. Unlike carp, the wildly successful quagga and zebra mussels, which first arrived as stowaways in ship ballast tanks, breed where they live and are capable of producing 1 million eggs per year. In many areas of the Great Lakes they now blanket the lake floor, and have become by far the most dominant species by biomass in Lake Michigan.

Those mussels have devoured much of the available phytoplankton — the same food source carp depend on — posing another challenge for the new invader. Research suggests that carp might be able to survive on other food sources, however, including mussel feces. And even minor competition from the voracious carp, which can eat up to one fifth of their body weight in plankton each day, could place further pressure on young walleye and other sport fish that also eat plankton in their larval stage.

While the lamprey and the equally disruptive alewife entered the Lakes on their own volition, they are the exception to the rule. Recent research published by Cuhel and Carmen Aguilar in the Annual Review of Marine Science found few of the many invaders since 1936 established themselves by swimming into the Lakes. Most were unintentionally transported or released.

“It only takes one idiot to infect a location with an exotic [species],” Cuhel said. “One fisherman with a bait bucket can be worse than river flow.”

Cuhel won’t weigh in on policy or engineering proposals to physically separate the Great Lakes and Mississippi basins, or treat locks with chemicals that could clear out carp and other invasive species before they enter Lake Michigan. But others have called expensive efforts to keep out invaders a foolhardy investment.

There are dozens of species in the Great Lakes basin that don’t currently exist in the Mississippi, and nearly a dozen more vice versa. Aquatic invasive species protections could defend those populations from cross-contamination. What’s more, environmental agencies already spend hundreds of millions of dollars each year managing algal blooms, sea lamprey and mussels. That makes an economic argument for prevention measures, Chadderton said, even if the carp don’t turn out to be good colonizers of most Great Lakes waters.

“The trouble with any invasion is that there will always be evidence on both sides. So do you let the experiment run?” Chadderton said. “The most prudent management option is to prevent establishment.”

Governor's trade mission to Mexico focuses on water technology

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 05:00:00 -0500

Against the backdrop of some 154 solar panels and Chicago’s first freestanding (and only utility-scale) wind turbine, Gov. Pat Quinn drank in the green roof atop Testa Produce, a south side wholesaler of fruits and vegetables that is the first LEED Platinum facility of its kind in the nation.

The $24 million refrigerated food distribution center was the site of Quinn’s debriefing of sorts from a trade trip he just took to Mexico — the first time an Illinois governor had made such a visit in 13 years. Water technology, he said, would be a key industry for both nations as they grapple with economic and environmental challenges.

With 1.6 million Mexican-Americans in the state, Quinn said, Illinois has a special relationship with its second largest trade partner (Canada is first). And in parched Mexico City, water technology is a growth industry. Dwindling resources have driven Mexico City to drill more than one mile into the Earth for clean water, an unprecedented depth typically considered too expensive to tap in the U.S. The country recently committed $2.8 billion to a Water Sustainability Program, promoting conservation as a way to slow the disappearance of aquifers that in some cases have already dropped hundreds of feet.

The governor met with Mexico City Mayor Miguel Mancera, two Mexican governors and representatives of the Mexican National Water Commission (CONAGUA). He brought reps from a Wood Dale, Ill.-based company. In-Pipe Technology is one of 100 wastewater companies that Quinn said stand to benefit from a growing demand for water technology south of the border. In-Pipe recently signed a contract with Mexico City for a pilot waste treatment program there.

In Mexico Quinn also found Lake Michigan a new sister in Michoacán state’s Lake Pátzcuaro, a small lake about 200 miles from the capital that is populated by indigenous groups and egrets, and does not drain to the sea.