One day, a book will be written about the 21st century, and the topic will be how the denizens in the world’s largest cities cleaned up the rivers which flow through them.

Whether that’s the Yangtze , the Seine , the Mersey , or the Chicago River, humans have well nigh decided that having a clean, odorless, swimmable, and living river is worth the loss in convenience of dumping and polluting.

Even though it turns green every year to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, that was about the only thing ‘green’ about the Chicago River for the longest time. But following the passage of the 1972 Clean Water Act, things began to change.

It’s now about to welcome swimmers back into its course for the first time in over a hundred years, and many different people, activities, and initiatives have go

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