A few Sundays back, Jim Hart was canoeing down the North Branch of the Chicago River near Oakton Avenue, in the middle of the forest preserve. Trees were everywhere he looked–including, he was suddenly shocked to see, in the middle of the stream. “I said, oh my god–some guy must have bought a new chain saw and couldn’t wait to go crazy with it.”
“I am damned upset,” says Frese, who has canoed on the North Branch for over 50 years. “They have cut 40 to 50 huge trees–thousands of years of growth.”
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Frese disagrees. He argues that the roots of both live and dead trees keep the riverbank from eroding during rains, heavy currents, and the breakup of winter ice. And standing dead trees not only give character to the landscape, they provide homes to insects, birds, and other animals that live near the river.
Historically, no single agency has taken responsibility for removing debris from the Chicago River. The North Branch, for example, runs through a half dozen municipalities from the county line to downtown. The Cook County Forest Preserve District cleans the river wherever it flows through forest preserves, while river debris outside the forests is the domain of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago. Meanwhile garbage that collects around a bridge is the responsibility of the town or railroad that owns the bridge.
Herlocker confirms that the Corps switched to minority-contractor bidding early in the cleanups. And he agrees with Frese that the first contractor was more sparing of trees–but differs on why. “That was early in the program, when the river was pretty well choked up,” he says. “There were more obvious things causing blockage.”
In any event, the fight is over for now: the Corps of Engineers’ contractor stopped chopping trees in mid-August, after Frese, Hart, and Koenig’s riverside meeting with Herlocker and other officials. As planned, the cleanup ended the same week. The Corps has begun to plan next year’s cleanup, however, and the North Branch users want to have a say in it. Friends of the Chicago River has pledged to act as a go-between.
