Our current system relates to water in single-use terms, meaning that we only use it once.
Such ways of relating to water are flawed because all the water that moves through the earth already exists.
Not only do we have all the water that we are ever going to receive, but it is also disappearing due to the warming of the planet.
Multi-use water, in contrast, involves cycling water through our world in ways that emulate nature. It can help to sustain people, businesses, and ecosystems.
Water recycling offers a viable solution to contemporary water crises.
Water recycling offers a viable solution to contemporary water crises.
Chicago can lead the way in water recycling
The city on the lake has the world’s largest water storage system known as the Deep Tunnel or TARP (Tunnel and Reservoir Plan), as well as the world’s largest wastewater treatment plants. Currently, we flush usable water (up to 11 billion gallons) down the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal where it can flow all the way to the Gulf of Mexico.
Source: Illustration by David Wilson, Belt Magazine, 2020.
Instead of sending fresh water into the salty gulf, we can recycle this water and prevent a growing water crisis in Illinois.
Although Lake Michigan and the Mississippi River form the borders of Illinois, there is a growing water crisis in the state.
The Cambrian-Ordovician aquifer on which millions of people depend is collapsing.
The emergency is most acute in and around Joliet, Illinois’s third largest city, where aquifer levels have dropped 800 feet and will soon be non-viable. Joliet and a consortium of neighboring communities have applied to receive treated Lake Michigan drinking water from Chicago.
A freshwater pipeline will run to Joliet by 2030.
Source: Abrams et al., “Changing Groundwater Levels.” Illinois State Water Survey, 2015
The Cambrian-Ordovician aquifer on which millions of people depend is collapsing.
The emergency is most acute in and around Joliet, Illinois’s third largest city, where aquifer levels have dropped 800 feet and will soon be non-viable. Joliet and a consortium of neighboring communities have applied to receive treated Lake Michigan drinking water from Chicago.
A freshwater pipeline will run to Joliet by 2030.
Source: Abrams et al., “Changing Groundwater Levels.” Illinois State Water Survey, 2015
Sustaining communities above a depleted aquifer is a necessary humanitarian project. However, the Joliet area has a large industrial footprint, mushrooming warehouses, and trucking transfer stations. These enterprises use a lot of water but do not require drinking water.
By meeting their needs with recycled water, we can secure economic growth while preserving Lake Michigan water for human health and sanitation and ecosystem viability.
Supplying industry with recycled water can secure Illinois in the long-term. A number of other Illinois communities dependent on the depleted aquifer are expected to apply for allocations of Lake Michigan water. The lake is not limitless and Illinois has a diversion limit of 2.1 billion gallons a day set by the U.S. Supreme Court.
We should not reach a point where human water needs cannot be met in Illinois because heavy industry is supplied with drinking water.
Industrial water reuse is the solution.
A dual-pipeline system can meet current and projected water demand in Illinois. In the dual-pipeline system, one line is dedicated to treated Lake Michigan water for domestic supply and a second line is dedicated to treated water from the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago (recycled water) to support industrial needs.
We model water recycling and the dual-pipeline system on the Chicago-Joliet water transfer. Including recycled water in this transfer is feasible and will have positive economic, environmental, and social effects. The model can be implemented for every new community requesting Lake Michigan water. Recycled water will supply industrial, commercial, and potentially, some irrigation needs.
The benefit is a future in which the Illinois coastline produces the world’s best water for multiple uses and supplies it to other municipalities and counties to enable them to flourish.
Lake Michigan water will reliably flow through millions of Illinois taps and pipes, attracting enterprise and population to the region as a whole.
Next steps
“From Waste to Water” is a collaboration between members of The Freshwater Lab, The Great Cities Institute, and Sustainable Engineering Research Laboratory at UIC.
Media
When the water wars come: Inside the plans for a pipeline between Joliet and Chicago
By S. Nicole Lane, Chicago Reader
November 2023
Currently, in Middle America, there’s a city running out of water. No, it’s not in California or Arizona. It’s 44 miles from the shores of Lake Michigan.
Groundwater depletion is a big problem, even in the Great Lakes region
By Landon Jones, WBEZ
September 2023
The U.S. Forest Service projects 40 states will have cities facing monthly water shortages in the next 50 years.
Op-ed: Fix for the Chicago-Joliet water deal — give recycled water to industry
By Rachel Havrelock, Chicago Tribune
July 2023
Photo credits:
Photo of Joliet’s ExxonMobil refinery by Flickr user yooperann.
Photo of Edgewater Beach by Flickr user Stephen Korecky.